


A Breed Apart

by archetypes



Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Blood Drinking, Blood and Injury, Blood and Violence, By might I mean it is, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, M/M, Might be slow burn, Minor Character Death, Minor Character(s), Normal Vampire Stuff, Vampire Hunter!Alec, Vampire!Magnus, Vampire: The Masquerade AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-03-13 03:39:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13561998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archetypes/pseuds/archetypes
Summary: Alec knows what he has to do in this life: kill vampires, lead his people, make his parents proud. Why was it, that when you knew what you had to do, suddenly there was nothing but obstacles in your way?vampire: the masquerade based au.





	1. The Beast

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is an alec/malec centric fic! while you can most definitely read this fic without knowing anything about vampire: the masquerade and its lore/universe, some words might confuse you, but thats okay! they confuse alec too, so you can- along with him- learn along the way! but just in case you don't want to do that, i will put a little dictionary at the end of every chapter (if necessary) to define some words for the reader, because i don't want this fic to be a chore or inconvenience to read! im writing it for fun so it should be that way to read as well!
> 
> okay, i hope you all enjoy this fic that will be centered around personal growth and prejudice! alec is a vampire hunter, and magnus is a tremere vampire. enjoy!

_**day 001 ; 12:30 am** _

“Faith, my son. Faith that is your own, is quite rare these days,” Alec’s mother had told him when he was small. He remembers looking up at her, big curious, hazel eyes blinking up at his hero while she smiled down at him. Her lips had curved in a way that had been nothing but calming amidst his confusion, long raven tresses pinned up in a sophisticated bun that never seemed to come all the way down. Whether it be a striking ponytail, or a half-up half-down pin, his mother’s hair was always carefully assessed. Much like everything else she did.

That’s where he went now, inside of his mind – which was normally calm – was now flooded with the rushing endorphins of this battle. To his mother who was waiting back at the Cathedral, assuredly expecting her children to return with good news and the heads of the undead on wooden pikes handcrafted with their victory over them.

Instead, it was a challenge. This battle breaking open.

Alec jumped to the side, his chest heaving heavily, shaking as he tried to pull a struggling breath inside of him and desperately fill his burning lungs. His back hit something solid, the arms holding down on his silver sword swinging wide and striking the demon closest to him, were throbbing. Slicing its skin open with their Society Blade. His elbow hurt with the force of the thrust, his body cranking into overdrive on the need to survive.

“-Right? Alec!”

He heard someone shout behind him, the voice so distorted when trapped between all the noise of battle, steel hitting steel and screams of pain and bloodcurdling agony echoing off of the brick in an almost unnatural way. Though distorted, it was also familiar, and maybe that was because of the distance between him and the detached voice: or the lack thereof. He craned his head hastily, his neck muscles clenching in protest at the sudden action. He’d bumped into Jace, not a wall like he’d assumed. They were back to back, leather to leather.

“What?” Alec called back, hazel full of questions, his body taut and guarded as he whipped his head back around, sensing the approach of another devil spawn. His brother seemed to be distracted once again as well, seeing as he didn’t respond right away.

The vampire bared its hideous, beastly fangs at him, its face brown and deformed. There were so many bones sticking from its skin, twisting like horns under its skin. Alec’s face was a grimace, disturbed and disgusted beyond belief. That thing must have gone through a car compactor or wood chipper- how else would its body stretch in such a way? Completely void of all humanity was its eyes, deep black and hypnotizing almost in the way that it horrified him. Left him frozen for just a bated breath of a moment before he moved with his quick reflexes. Alec’s leg lifted, his pants stretching with the motion, and planted his foot on the vampire’s chest. He used all his force to kick it back, using the moment’s respite of it falling backwards onto the ground to thrust his blade, his whole body tilted downwards to slash the creatures head clean off in one fell swoop. His entire arms were beginning to strain; never had they had to be responsible for killing so many at once. It wasn’t supposed to go down like this, this wasn’t the plan.

* * *

_**day 000 ; 11:16 pm** _

“Alec,” his mother had begun, striding confidently through the halls of the Cathedral, her heels clacking nosily against the grey limestone floor tiles. The two of them passed many people while walking down the aisles, roman pillars standing tall and wide all the way up to the grandeur arch of the ceiling; a kaleidoscope of colors bleeding through the arches from the stained glass windows that depicted the stories of their Society’s ancestors. “You know I love Jace and Isabelle, but this is not the time to be advocating for their accountability.”

He sighed almost microscopically, bringing his hands securely behind his back as they continued on, one hand wrapped around his opposite wrist in a comfortable hold. “I know, and I know what you expect of me tonight.”

“Good.” She’d sounded content with this response, not exactly pleased, but he didn’t really remember the last time she sounded pleased with anything.

They broke away from the constructed aisles, a few other hunters had been sitting at the pews, and the extended bright white of the wood under a body with their hands clasped in faith was pure. A holy and admirable image. Limestone quickly shifted to plush, red carpet under the soles of their shoes with their purposeful strides through the only place everyone under this clerestory could call home. The carpet directed them down a flight of heavy, cement steps. The hallway was dark, only several flickering wall lanterns lit the way to the crypt. Alec remembered the same thing every time he walked down this hallway, Max’s voice ringing in his ears, saying that the stone walls felt cold. He always shook it away, the memory of his little brother bone-chilling…

“This Cathedral, the Society, they will be _yours_ one day. I know I don’t have to keep telling you, but I know that you can accomplish great things here, Alec. I know that your father would be proud to take over, to stand where I do right now, and where he stood before me.” Her words had been slightly encouraging. 

“Thanks mom,” he answered sincerely. It was always words like that, ones that guaranteed the happiness of his father’s memory, that he liked to hear the most. He just wanted to make them both proud.

The hallway was narrowing, the shadows of light flickering off of their skin and against the terracotta color of the stone. Once they reached the entrance to the crypt, the hallway ending, nothing in front of them now but a seemingly dead end. Alec slid the secret entrance open, the wall sliding to the left with the force he put into prying the slot aside, the stone making a scraping sound against the floor.

“But it will still take hard work and tireless effort, so I want your leadership skills to blossom tonight. I want you to take charge this pursuit,” She told him, walking past the now open entrance, that stone appearance disappeared altogether once on the other side of the hall. The crypt was well lit, heavy gothic chandeliers dangled from the ceiling, each bulb a sharp point like the blades of their swords. 

The walls were not only lined with a plethora of weapons, but Christian paraphernalia. Holy items such as crosses and expansive murals of the victories of the Society. Dead vampires, sunlight pouring down on them while tied in rope and incapacitated with the wooden stake plunged into them and keeping them immobile. There were long, wooden tables made of strong and sturdy oak. Groups of hunters stood around nearly all of the dozen of them in this wide underground sanctuary; studying weapons, maps, and lists of one kind or another. 

Alec had seen Jace sat on top of one in the near back of the room, his body leaned forwards, his elbows on his legs as he stared ahead at his approaching brother and mother. Isabelle was sat beside him, one leg down on the bench below the table, and the other curled up on the oak, outstretched behind Jace’s body, her head against his shoulder. Maryse looked over at Alec, dark brown eyes swirling with something powerful like she was urging him to speak. So speak he did.

“Scouts!” Alec called, his tone was strong and loud. It bounced off of the furniture and came for everyone’s ears like a personal vendetta. “Tell me, is the location secure for us to attack the vampires?” He asked, walking up to his siblings table with his mother no longer by his side, but standing far behind him, her arms crossed across her chest like she was here to do nothing more than observe.

Jace and Isabelle straightened their backs; while rowdy and not particularly as focused as many of the other hunters inside of the Society was, they were respectful of who was in charge of any and all operations. The blonde had stood shortly after Alec spoke, his body moving into parade rest as he addressed his brother. “Yes, many of our men have just gotten back from clearing out a path in the sewers below the alleyway we are going to come through. They made sure all of the rooftops were empty, we don’t want to blocked in when the passage is narrow.”

“We’ll keep some men behind when the rest of us head inside to flush the vampires out, to make sure none of them slip away to catch us off guard during our exit back into the sewers,” Alec announced to them, his siblings and the other hunters surrounding the table now. “Volunteers?” He asked, his jaw setting as he swept his eyes across the group.

Isabelle seemed to perk up at that, the opportunity to make her elder brother happy with a show of dedication, but there was a cough behind them, this thick clearing of the throat. Alec’s brow quirked, and he spun around for a moment to look back at his mother. 

“Isabelle, could you come back upstairs with me for a moment? I have some things _here_ that need to be taken care of… would you?” The way she asked, tone shifting upwards, it was like she hadn’t really been asking, but in fact telling.

When he heard that, he turned back to the group, a pang of pity banging through him when he’d seen his sisters face crumble, and then harden again like she was severely disappointed, but too old to show it now. She nodded, hair gravity defying and lively with the action. “Of course,” the girl answered responsibly, as she walked away from everyone else and followed their mother back out of the crypt.

Alec sighed, brows tugged together as he thought of that display. Isabelle had been on plenty of pursuits before this, maybe not one so fleshed out as this, so large and full-scale, but neither had he nor Jace. She was just as capable was she not? “So, volunteers?” He asked again, awaiting a different hand or voice to raise.

“Sir.” A man, Raj, had called in the back, his head raising as a silent confirmation of volunteering. Three more hunters followed suit and Alec nodded in acceptance of this.

“You four will stay behind the rest of us as we make our way through the sewers then, and while we break away for the fight you will stay behind. Two of you down in the sewers still, make sure we aren’t followed, and two above the grate.” Alec had thought about this pursuit every night before bed for the past two weeks. Every scouting mission had put him further and further into the investment, and all he had seen right then was perfect clarity. He had known how he wanted it to go.

* * *

_**day 001 ; 12:39 am** _

“Raj and Lydia should still be at the sewers right?” Jace called again, his body rocking back into Alec’s from what had to be the aftershock of a powerful attack; whether it was from or at him, Alec was unsure from his position. “We just have to break away! Clear _our_ way and cut our losses!” There was a shake in his voice, like he was screaming while panting- which was likely entirely the case, Alec was sure.

_Run? Would dad want me to run? What would dad do? Would he stay? Would he kill the beasts before anything else?_

His thoughts raced, his eyes dragging over every detail of the corroded, crumbling walls of the abandoned brewery. Its walls lined with tattered fabric covering every busted window and keeping every inch of light out. Both street and sun. He caught blurry, wide-eyed glimpses of a set of likely treacherous stairs leading up to some old offices. Alec’s mind was full of jumbled thoughts, all of them trying to prove themselves of being useful in this time sensitive moment, but he thought he could find a window to escape back out into the alleyway from up there. Maybe. Hopefully.

_We’re worse off than I thought if **I’m** relying on hope._

“If they’re not dead,” Alec finally answered him.

“Not dead, come on!” Jace shouted, Alec’s body going rigid when he felt his hand grip his forearm tight and tug him in his direction.

The elder brother stumbled for a second, tripping over his feet with the sudden change of scenery, spun all the way around, but caught himself almost immediately. His body was filled to the brim with bubbling adrenaline, it burned everything else inside of him away. There was no fear really, only sheer power of will to survive. They sprinted off towards the steps to the office, Alec doing his fair share of yanking his brother along by leading him in that direction: that was the difference between them. Jace ran and ran fast, but he didn’t always know where to go, because he didn’t stop to plan it out all of the way. The amount of times he’s made it out of somewhere alive and breathing that was based on luck, and luck alone, was too many times for anyone else to feel comfortable with. But no, not Jace.

Their combat boots hit the cement at an incredible pace, Alec’s ears filling with pumping blood, his heartbeat prominent like it was trying to drown out the sound of his Society crying, his hunters, his family. He was in charge now, would have so much more free reign commanding the scouts, and this was how his first run would go? Likely many deaths on his hands when his mother was expecting nothing less than perfection? He wonders what would be scarier, the wrath or the disappointment of Maryse Lightwood? Which stare would burn a bigger hole in Alec’s head?

They knock into so many people it doesn’t register at first, he doesn’t pay enough attention to who was attacking who, but a body flies in front of him, knocks into Jace and Alec has no choice but to act quickly. “Get off him,” he demanded with a shout, swinging his blade threateningly at the beast, attempting to quickly calculate where exactly to slice the creature in order to cut through it, but not go through and cut Jace open accidentally.

But when the beast reared it fangs, a thick, intimidating hiss coming from it’s throat, it wasn’t to Alec. It turned back towards the being who flung it in the first place; another vampire. One just as hideous, one as monstrously deformed as the first. It launched itself at the offending vampire, off of Jace and across the brewery compared to where they stood.

“They’re attacking each other?” Alec asked, a crease splitting his forehead in half as he reached down to pick Jace up off of the dusty ground, his brother’s black leather jacket now covered in a thick layer of grey mites.

The younger grunted, looking just as confused once he was on his feet again. “Who knows, stole his blood bag?” He guesses, but his tone was entirely joking, even under the layer of wear and tear.

They start off again, Alec seeing no need to respond when he didn’t know either. When they make it to the stairs they take two at a time, the metal bending and creaking underneath each footstep like they were going to fall out from underneath them, and it was a miracle they didn’t. The door leading into the offices was right at the top of the steps, the frame looking industrial. Jace pushes Alec aside lightly into the metal rail by the stairs, and before he even attempted to open it with his hand he took a boot to the handle and kicked it off with pure force. It clattered to the floor so the two of them could shove the useless door open without any effort now.

“Filthy Tremere! So effective, yet so stupid!” A female vampire shouted, her body lanky, looming over all of them in the room at what must have been more than Alec’s six feet, three inches. Not many people towered over him, but a lot of these creatures did. Her bones seemed to be visible under her alabaster skin- this vampire seemed to be what the humans thought them to look like. Pale and sickly, its voice nothing like what the other ones sound like. Not gravelly, not this rumble of power, but melodically. A sinister thing.

It was spitting its insult at another devil spawn, this one male. The kind that they’ve seen many times before, unlike those twisted brown and green ones down there on the first floor of the supposed-to-be abandoned brewery. It was able to look human. Its hair was pitch black, save for this burst of red at the tips, like a flame slicing through its hair. It was decked out in clothes too fancy for a battle and for this day and age. A thick purple vest over a long sleeved button down, all of it covered in an overcoat. It was wearing jewelry too, rings upon rings, and bracelets up and down his wrists. It was strange, they didn’t need to look _that_ human, why was it dressed like that? Why was it trying so hard?

“Jealousy is _such_ an unflattering look,” the decorative creature responded, arrogance coating it’s voice like a film, its hands out in front of it like prepared to catch a ball thrown its way or something of the like.

Like the flip of a switch, the vampires shifted, pivoting both away from one another and towards Jace and Alec, but still able to see the other creature across the room- as if they didn’t know how to guard themselves. Before anyone could say anything Jace reacted, lifting his blade and throwing himself at the male, a battle-cry leaving his lips.

“You idiotic hunters,” the female sneered, lunging for Alec, its body gliding as if the shadows seemed to be carrying it along. Disappearing in and out of them, Alec never quite able to look it head-on. “So _weak_ ,” it cackled, its voice never here nor there. Alec was still slashing at nothing, his body turning around in circles over and over, it was toying with him.

“Show yourself!” He demanded, stabbing at a particularly thick looking shadow, but his body locked, the creature coiling around him lick a snake, Alec grunting as his right arm was sieged. “You’re a coward,” he taunted, groaning in pain as it begun prying his fingers from the blade.

“Not a coward- a _winner_ , kine,” it spat.

The vampire got a hold of his blade, and went to work right away, slashing at Alec’s arm with his own weapon like it was kicking him while he was down. He knew the vampire could do as it pleased with its… ‘powers’, but it used his own weapon. Sick thing.

His skin sliced open easily, the muscle tearing violently and leaving a horrible burning behind. “Fuck!” He screamed, clutching his wound, a thick, hot trail of blood sliding past his fingers and down his entire arm. It seeped through his clothes, his eyes narrowed in pain as he looked at the tear in his leather jacket. The vampire gripped him tight, an arm around Alec’s neck as it spun them around and made him face his brother and the male vampire. “Jace,” Alec called, worried when he saw the vampire pinning him against the wall without any use of his hands, his brother crying out in pain like his very insides were being torn apart. “Jace!”

“Two birds…” The vampire with the tight hold on Alec murmured lowly in his ear, her long, sharp nails digging into the skin on his neck, making him hiss in pain. 

The female threw Alec’s sword like a throwing knife, a small weightless dagger, into the other vampires back, just above its tailbone. The blade sank into its body with a sickening crunch, and the vampire cried out in pain, its knees almost buckling but it remained upwards until the female then tossed Alec like he was nothing; his body flying into the recently injured vampire as if he were a ragdoll.

Alec’s mind went blank, body numb as he heard the sound of glass shattering, his eyes screwed shut in fear like he was waiting for the entire building to collapse down on top of him. He wheezed, his body ceasing all breathing, the wind knocked out of him completely and he was unable to gather another lungful. His eyes shot open only to see nothing but the night sky staring down on him, the lights from the city making him unable to see the stars, but he didn’t need to, they were in his head. His eyes blinking blearily up at nothing, and the edge of his vision was bright white, the pain wanting to blind him. His breaths were gasping, and after a few seconds (that felt like eons) he realized he wasn’t lying on the ground.

“Get off of me,” a voice grumbled, two hands gripping his shoulders and shoving him aside.

Alec made another struggling gasp as he was shoved onto the pavement. He rolled over onto his side, his stomach lurching like it was welcoming this position because it wanted him to puke his damn brains out.

“You’re welcome for breaking your fall, _hunter_ ,” That same voice spoke up- as if this was exactly the best time to argue with Alec.

He scrambled up to his feet, his head spinning and his body as tight as a spring ready to uncoil. He knew then it was the other vampire, and he couldn’t just very well lay down and die. If that happened his mother would not only be angry and disappointed, but sad as well. “Why are you all fighting each other?” Alec’s voice boomed, this part of the alleyway seemingly empty. “Why did it do that, why did it throw us both?” He was yelling, a hand still covering the wound on his arm. Which reminds him… 

He hurriedly ripped off the bottom cloth of his shirt, a thick piece of fabric, and tore his jacket off of him so he could tie the makeshift tourniquet above his wound to decrease the blood flow from being so heavy.

“She’s a stuck-up Sabbat bitch, that’s why,” the vampire responded dryly while reaching into its own stomach, picking out pieces of Alec’s seemingly crushed blade. “I’ll kill you when I’m done digging steel out of my back.”

“You can try,” Alec shot back, his back straightening like he was prepared for the thing to charge him. 

“You deserve it. I got stabbed with _your_ sword, and fell out of the window because _you_ hit me, and _you_ landed on me after a two story drop. I think it’s only fair.” Its voice was dry, as if it would sound lively had it not been injured.

Alec wearily glanced around this dead-end of an alley, trying to find any possible escape route that would allow him to move quicker than this undead, but he saw nothing. Nothing that he was capable of while in this physical state. “…It threw me at you. I didn’t _hit_ you.”

“You hit me,” it insisted, meeting Alec’s eyes fiercely. “Now my hair is definitely ruined and probably has dirt in it,” it made this sound like such an act was unforgiveable, and not the situation where Alec’s sword went through his back.

“-If you’re going to try to kill me, just do it.”

“…Sword. In my back. Keep up, kine.” It hissed at a particularly large piece of steel being pulled from its back. The vampire threw it to the ground, tossing it near Alec’s feet like it was his garbage he needed to pick up.

“Don’t call me that, devil.” Alec was hostile, not comfortable being so close to this creature.

“Oh? But “devil” is acceptable? I have a name.”

“So do I, but you don’t need to know it.”

“Well next time, call me Magnus, Magnificent, Gorgeous, or nothing at all.”

“I pick nothing.” Alec faced away from the vampire now, deeming it more annoying than harmful. The hunter swept his eyes over the entire building, irritated that the only windows on this side were the ones on the second story. 

_Was luck on Jace’s side again this time or was it finally sick of saving his ass?_

His heart raced in agony at just the thought of him lying there lifeless… maybe the vampire sucked all his blood out. Jace deserved to die with glory, with respect. With his family. Not lying on the floor of a filthy, abandoned building.

“Can you fight?” The vampire asked, getting Alec’s attention again. 

He turned abruptly, stepping back away from the sound of a voice. He said nothing for a second… and then he decided to just say nothing at all.

The vampire... _Magnus_ , sighed. 

Alec couldn’t help but wonder, why do they keep those names? They’re no longer alive, they don’t have a soul or a heart. Why would they possibly care about a name? It didn’t make any sense to him. He was taught that they turned beastly after death, cared about nothing but their thirst for human blood, this one must not be all that powerful or old if so foolish to think it still has the right to a name.

“I want out of here, you want out of here, we could make it through if we work together. The Sabbat won this whole area, the whole outside of the building, none of your people are out here, and neither are mine. They cut us off from any exits besides fighting straight through, or back into the building. You’re injured. You may be kine, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you’re not a complete moron… even though the pretty ones usually are.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” He asks, tone guarded, offended that the thing was commenting on his _looks_ of all things. But more importantly, his intelligence. Though, to be fair, he didn’t exactly understand what he meant by that word, Sabbat, and how they weren’t _his people_ when they were clearly vampires. Though now wasn’t exactly the time to interrogate a vampire.

“Make your choice, pretty boy. Come with me or go alone. This is no alliance, this is just momentary survival.”

Alec stared and stared at… Magnus. He could see how the ordinary humans fell for it. The façade of humanity that these creatures possessed. A mask to shield them from the eyes of the living, made them see what they wanted them to see. A bloodsucking creature calling him pretty was unsettling, this chill crawling up his back, but he had no choice. He had nothing but his hand to hand expertise, and one of his hands was sort of out of commission. To save any of his people still left alive, he needed to go get backup, he couldn’t do it on his own. And to do that, he needed to survive long enough to get out of here.

“Fine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you all liked the first chapter! thanks to those who read :)
> 
> dictionary:  
> 1\. "wooden stake plunged into them and keeping them immobile [...]" - in the world of V:TM stakes do not kill vampires, only immobilize them.
> 
> 2\. "Tremere" - in V:TM there is not one vampire, but 13 clans of vampires, all with their own unique skill sets. The Tremere are nicknamed "warlocks" because their clan has Thaumaturgy, which is blood magic, unique to only them. Many other vampires don't care for the Tremere.
> 
> 3\. "kine" - human.
> 
> 4\. "Sabbat" - One of the sects the vampires can join. A group of vampires that believe other vampires are weak because they are pawns for their government called the Camarilla, and their clan elders.


	2. Elysium

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you to everyone who left kudos and bookmarked this fic for the first chapter ! youre all very kind :) hope this chapter is just as enjoyable to read

_**day 001 ; 1:44 am** _

They stood there in a bubble of silence, just staring at one another, this look of pure distrust in both of their eyes, Alec fiddling uncomfortably with his tourniquet. Even though he’d just reluctantly agreed to work with the vampire, he was still unsure of where to go, or what to do, in this moment. They did not have the same long-term goal, and he wasn’t one to act on a short-term situation, not usually. But, while standing here he’s gone over every possible outcome in his head, and going alone was a death wish. That he knew.

“So what? We walk around the front of the building like it’s nothing? Then what? Curse God for allowing us to die?” He asks, eyes cast down at his wound, assessing its overall damage. It would surely leave a nasty scar. He had too many of those from years of training; this was not the first battle scar.

“Curse your false God all you want, but there’s still some fighting for territory going on. We go the way I came from, through the building in front of this one, and then back out onto the streets,” The vampire said. Alec thought about that for a second, about how stupid it was to come from another building like the element of surprise meant nothing. He watches as the vampire clutches its stomach, fingers still plucking out some stray shards. 

“Why would you just walk through another building like that?”

“I didn’t exactly have time to prepare for a battle I knew nothing about. The only reason I was here at all was because- nevermind, it doesn’t matter,” it sputters, deciding it didn’t want to tell Alec much of anything. Seemingly content with its work with picking the shards out, Alec watches curiously as it pulls its fingers away and the wound closes almost immediately. This pulling inwards of skin, sucking the wound shut and leaving nothing but clean flesh behind. He knew that they could heal from fatal wounds, but he’s never seen it up close before. It was disgusting.

The grimace on his face must have been obvious because the vampire cleared its throat. “My eyes are up here.”

Alec rolled his up to the sky, “Fine, just… lead the way. I’m not letting you walk behind me.” He uses his hand to gesture ahead vaguely in the direction they were going to go. Alec usually wore his mistrust of everyone on his sleeve, but in this particular moment it was wearing him. It was all over his face, his actions, and his responses.

“Right, you’re only speaking to the person who took your literal sword to the back, nothing huge.” Apparently that would be a grudge for the rest of the night.

“I didn’t throw the damn thing at you.”

“Oh, but you definitely would have if you weren’t a little tied up, now wouldn’t you?”

Alec’s jaw set, this irritated twitch of bone digging into bone and making it pop. “You were hurting my brother, you would have deserved it.”

“You know what, let’s stop playing the blame game, we’ll just go around in circles for an eternity and that’s not exactly how I plan on spending the rest of mine,” The vampire says while he meets Alec’s eyes, the two of them both looking particularly peeved.

“Whatever, you started it.” It’s childish, he knows.

“…And so you keep going, you’re insufferable,” It complains, turning on its heels and heading for the mouth of the alley they were inside.

Alec says nothing to that, just follows closely, the ground crunching underneath every single step he takes, bits of broken glass from the window they crashed through lying beneath them where they had landed. Some even a few feet from there. The scarce streetlights left only small, spread out shadows, but from the angle of one that must have been positioned a few feet from the brewery, and he could see the shadows of vampires fighting other vampires. Of vampires fighting his own hunters. “De-,” He cut himself off, sighing in annoyance. “ _Magnus_ , what do you see?” He asks, standing a large distance behind him, but still kept himself close to the entrance of the alley.

The vampire made a noise, one that sounded amused. Or maybe it was just unimpressed. “So now we’re playing nice?” It asked, tone flying upwards into something so falsely cheerful. Alec didn’t bother saying anything, just waited for an actual answer to his question. “I see… the need for blood in my future.”

“That’s disgusting,” Alec said abruptly, stepping even further away from the other male. “Move out of the way,” he demanded, gripping his shoulder and pushing him aside before occupying the space he had been in. His concern was no long the fact that the creature would be behind him; he was sick of the comments, the jokes, and the infuriating humor. This wasn’t funny, this was life or death, only a thing that didn’t have a soul to lose would find that such a hard concept to understand.

“What did you think I saw? Fighting, little room to run to safety without issue, yada, yada, yada…” The vampire pressed up against Alec’s back, apparently much more comfortable than the hunter had been. It peered over Alec’s shoulder, surveying the land just as it had been before. Unfortunately, the vampire had been correct in its assessment.

There were far more vampires than humans outside of the abandoned brewery, and far more vampires attacking other cornered vampires. This ‘Sabbat’ was certainly outnumbering everyone else. Alec’s eyes ran over every open space, and the one that caught his eye the most was the small, narrow alleyway that he and his people had come this way from. It was empty as far as he could tell, no one guarding the mouth of it; which likely meant his people that he had covering the entrance to the sewers were gone as well. Alec sighed, his shoulders folding inwards slightly like the weight of this whole situation was leaving it hard to stand under its crushing force. 

“Do you see the door to the back of the building in front of this one?” The vampire asked, voice brought to a hush like they would suddenly be heard now that their heads were poking out from behind the building. “Kine eyes are weak.”

“I told you not to call me that, _demon_ ,” Alec spat, not-so-subtly peeling away a little further, trying to get it off of his back.

“I _wasn’t_ calling you that, I was just saying you humans have pitiful eye-sight. Much like a foul attitude and headstrong idiocy. Once again, it’s Magnus or nothing.”

“Being a demon means you are nothing, so I guess I fulfilled that request,” He sounded pleased with himself, like he was outsmarting an authority figure.

“You’re making it extremely difficult to be a pacifist.” 

“You’re not a pacifist,” he pointed out, glancing behind him and giving _Magnus_ a dirty look. The image of Jace writhing and screaming in pain due to whatever the vampire had been doing was still fresh in his mind.

“-You don’t know anything about me whatsoever, how bold of you, to make an assessment of my personality.” _Magnus_ looked him in the eyes now as Alec was glancing back at him, a look of offense on its face.

“I just watched you attack my brother, how could you possibly be a pacifist?” Alec looked away, unnerved due to the prolonged eye contact, and made sure to go back to surveying the area. He found the door Magnus mentioned, dimly lit by a flickering porch lamp, shadows of moths dancing around the fading flame of light that was pointing down towards the top frame of the door.

“First of all, he attacked me first, much like the Sabbat bitch. Mother Theresa would have fought back if someone tried to stab her in the back with a big sword.” Magnus said, “Can we please focus on the task at hand so we can get out of here with all of our limbs?” 

“Fine. Let me tell you the fatal flaw in your brilliant plan,” The human starts, not looking back at Magnus again, but instead keeps his attention focused on the vampires and humans falling, going down what seemed to be second by second to the opposition. “I don’t have a weapon, how am I supposed to kill any of those things without a weapon?”

“You do not need to kill any of them. The plan is that we should push through, until out onto the public streets.” The vampire goes beside him now, glancing over at Alec even though he wasn’t looking at it. “Now, let’s go,” It said, and just like that, glided past Alec and out into the fray.

“No, no, no-,” Alec tried, hands shooting out to attempt to latch onto Magnus’ coat but he was too late, and his feet pushed him forwards, quickly following after him.

Alec pivoted dutifully, sliding up behind Magnus easily, and kept his back facing his to cover his rear. That was how his Society behaved, and that was how they stayed alive so it was what he had to do now. Just like he predicted, it didn’t take long for the vampires to notice their disturbance; Alec was knocked down from behind. He grunted as his face hit the pavement, dust and dirt from rain and the muck underneath shoes smeared all over his cheek and temple. He felt a body on top of him, but not the hostile kind- Magnus had been shoved down, he could hear hissing and the thrum of something volatile on top of him. 

“What are you doing?” He huffs, hands on the ground and trying to shove both of them upwards again. 

The vampire doesn’t answer, only groans, his body tilting up but he was still sitting on top of Alec like a chair. The human was frustrated, his head craning upwards so he could look back at the front of the brewery. The was a clear path… maybe if he could run inside and back up the stairs to the office he could check on Jace; see if he was still alive. If he was winning for them. If anyone could do it, it would be Jace.

The moment he felt his body free from Magnus’ weight, he hopped up, knees creaking in protest at the speed of the sudden motion, and he dashed forwards, going for the opening to the abandoned building like his life depended on it. His didn’t, but his brothers might have. He couldn’t help this irritating vampire, he just couldn’t; it wasn’t in anyone’s best interest, especially not his own. It was for the best this way, he wouldn’t have even known how to go about keeping that thing safe if it came down to it.

His bones were aching as he ran, he held onto his arm just below the sword wound, squeezing tight like the pressure would keep it from hurting so much but it didn’t help whatsoever, it only left it burning worse. He skidded to a stop right in front of the door, two disgusting vampires slithering out of the brewery, one of them reaching for Alec’s throat immediately, its morphed, clawed hand was covered in layers and layers of crusting, damp blood. Alec dropped his wounded arm and instead went on the defensive, knocking the vampire’s hand aside. While preoccupied, the second vampire took advantage of this moment and slid up behind Alec, wrapping its arms around his neck. It smelled like sulfur, this hot, sweating death that left his nose burning.

“Wonder what this one tastes like,” The thing with the hold on him cackled, hoarse and gravelly was its voice. Nothing melodically at all. “All of your friends are a little bland, hope you don’t disappoint,” It said, this time not to its companion, but to Alec himself. “Oops… did I say _are_? I meant _were_.” Another round of snickering and cackling went on between them.

Alec said nothing, his face just contorted into something with ferocity, he gripped the arm wrapped around his neck tight, and then used it like a pull-up bar, tugging all of his weight up onto the vampire so he could lift his legs as the second one approached him. He kicked it square in the chest, knocking it back and onto the ground for a moment of respite. He watched another vampire tackle it while it was down, back into the other battle it went. The moment his boots touched the ground again he yanked himself forward, trying to toss the other vampire over his shoulder- he wasn’t exactly successful. The vampire was planted like a tree rooted to the ground for decades.

“Silly hunter,” It murmurs, its tone so patronizing. It dug its claws into Alec’s bare neck, popping shallow holes in his skin and dragging downwards, scraping his skin open and even tearing the collar of his shirt apart until it slipped off of his shoulder.

“Fuck!” He screams, a heavy, throbbing ache in his neck. “No! No! No!” He yelled, trying with all of his might to pry its hold on him apart, but he was just tearing flecks of its skin off that grew back in milliseconds. Everything seemed useless. He tries to flail, kicking his limbs around everywhere, but nothing happens. The thing dug its teeth into him and he screamed, “Stop!” He bashes his closed fists against its head but nothing… nothing worked. It hurt so badly, its fangs buried deep in a vein as it sucked out Alec’s lifeblood.

It was a long, agonizing few seconds before finally the vampire stopped, its grip on Alec dropping immediately, and the hunter fell to the floor. He clutched his neck, panting rapidly with a terrified expression on his face as the blood kept running past his fingers and down his entire right arm. He whips his head around, looking back up at the vampire who had been eating him.

He was dropped down on Alec’s level now, just sitting there on its knees, and Alec saw a stake poking out from where its heart should be. It was frozen, stuck in place and incapacitated because of the wood in its undead heart. Alec was breathing heavy as he looked up, eyes meeting his savior. That same bright streak of red between the blades of black, and sparks of light from the dim porch light bouncing off of many ear piercings and one nose ring. Magnus.

“That wasn’t part of the plan, idiot,” Magnus said, reaching down quickly and gripped Alec’s arm with his free hand. He had another stake in the other one.

Alec scrambles up to his feet, but he was finding it hard to catch his breath. Two vampires in battle beside them almost knocked him over, so he hurriedly backs up. He looks all around them, head turning rapidly like an owls, and he realizes they’re practically- no, they’re completely cut off from both of the doors. But there was one more place they could go… “Come on,” Alec demands, begrudgingly gripping Magnus’ arm. Before going anywhere though, the hunter faces the vampire stuck on its knees, and kicks him in the face; pulling his leg all the way back as far as it could go, and punted the thing in the jaw. A sickening pop came from its face and that satisfied Alec to his very core. A tingle of satisfaction running down his spine as it could do nothing but groan in pain, and lay sprawled out on the cement.

Alec runs as fast as he can, dropping Magnus’ arm and heading in the direction of the back alley, his body dragging against the wall of the alley the moment they got close enough to duck inside of it. It was empty… none of his people that he’d stationed here remained, but he had no choice but to continue on. He didn’t know if they were being followed this way so he dropped down to his knees rapidly, skidding down on them in front of the sewer grate. He tried to pry it open again, but it was so hard with only one good arm. He strains, groaning and huffing as he tries and tries, but it doesn’t budge.

“Let me do it,” Magnus says, dropping down next to Alec and shoving his hand off of the grate. He drops the stake he has to instead grip the grate tightly with both hands, and pulls the already loose metal up easily, unlike Alec’s pathetic display. “What made you think of this?” Magnus asks, tossing the sixty pound lid a few feet away from the drain. 

“We came in this way, go,” He explained hastily, pushing on the vampires arm and trying to shove him down there already.

Magnus listened, tossing one leg over and into the drain, hands gripping the ladder that led all the way down into the sewers and quickly travelled down them. Alec followed after him, blindly feeling for the ladder and with both hands on the edge of its rails, he expertly slid down without needing to use the steps. His feet hit the ground with wet sloshes, the contaminated water splashing at his jeans and would likely leave a disgusting stench behind. He would throw these away later, burn them maybe- he definitely would never wear them again. He lost pants, a shirt, and one of his favorite jackets tonight… how unfortunate. The sewers didn’t seem to change while he was above ground, still there was the faint sound of dripping water (or other, more suspicious liquids) that came from the ceiling, which was all one big round circle. There were tunnels leading every which way, so many of them leading to different manholes in this sewer system in this part of the city. It smelled rancid, even if the system had been flushed recently, it would never smell like it. It was covered in waste from not only humans, but rats as well. He could hear their claws scratching against the heavy duty pipes and walls, even scurrying through the water pooled up on the floor.

It was dark, nothing but a few service lights up close to the ceiling, all of them blinking red. It left an eerie glow over the tunnels, made all of the noises enhanced in the atmosphere.

“One of yours?” Magnus asks suddenly, his voice bouncing off of the slimy walls. When Alec turns in his direction, he followed down to where he was looking to. There was a body on the ground. Magnus crouched down and pilfered through the bag by the body, apparently trying to scrounge up something in particular because the vampire made an ‘ah-ha’ noise shortly after. He clicked on a flashlight, and shined it down onto the face of the body – it was Raj.

“No.” The word flew from Alec’s lips. He crouched down, all of his weight pressing onto the balls of his feet just as the vampire straightened itself up beside him. “…Dammit, it wasn’t supposed to go down like this.” He ran a hand over his face, not even caring that drying blood flaked off of the palm and mingled with the dirt and grime already on his cheek from the battle. With the light shining on Raj’s face, Alec could see his lifeless eyes were open, staring up at nothing. Unfocused and disturbing. He reached for his eyes, cautiously and respectively pulling each lid down. “I will come back with back-up soon… and they will carry you home to have a proper burial,” he told the body. Raj was stupid, an asshole sometimes and entirely unbearable to stand being in the same room with for more than five minutes, but he certainly didn’t deserve to die. He sighs, and takes a deep breathe before drawing a cross over Raj’s face with his first finger. “Remember, O Lord, the God of Spirits and of all Flesh, those whom we have remembered and those whom we have not remembered, men of the true faith, from righteous Abel unto today; do thou thyself give them rest there in the land of the living, in thy kingdom, in the delight of Paradise, in the bosom of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, our holy fathers, from whence pain and sorrow and sighing have fled away, where the light of thy countenance visiteth them and always shineth upon them,” he blesses him the way they were always taught to. How they always did when someone old, or sick, or fatally wounded passed away at the Cathedral. It’s what they did for his father, and for Max.

“Right…” Magnus begins, Alec already knowing he wasn’t going to like whatever the vampire was going to say based on that stupid tone. “What was _supposed_ to happen was that body is supposed to be one of my apprentices, right? Or one of my friends? One of the people I consider to be my only family? Or _their_ friends or their coteries? Seems a little hypocritical if you ask me. Also seems a little selfish- callous. None of you should have come here at all, maybe you should have stayed home and had an anti-Kindred rally all by yourselves.”

“Fuck you, fuck them, and fuck your _family_ too,” Alec spits, standing up, the warm rush of blood still sliding down his neck. He needed to get his wounds taken care of stat.

Magnus’ eyes widened momentarily before they narrowed themselves into little slits, dagger tips being thrown in Alec’s direction. It raises the flashlight until its shining directly in Alec’s eyes. “Why the hell did you people come here tonight?”

Alec squints, bringing his only good hand up to shield his eyes from the blinding beam of light. “I don’t have to tell you anything. Get that light out of my face.”

“Hmm? I can’t hear you, I’m too busy reliving the memory of saving your life when I could have let you become dinner for that loathsome Nosferatu.” Magnus flicks the light around in circles, as if to taunt him with the very ray.

“Oh yeah? Then why didn’t you, no one asked you to save my life, I sure as hell didn’t. Was that thing just on the other side? Thought it would be easier to take him down when I was already injured? Why don’t _you_ tell me what those other demons were doing here tonight? They clearly did more damage to you things more than any of us.” He gestures to himself with his bloody hand, the other still too busy blocking the light out of his eyes.

“How the fresh hell am I supposed to know what they were doing? They were obviously scouting the area and thought it needed a little purging of Anarch blood.”

Before he could continue Alec held an impatient hand up, “What is that? What’s an Anarch? Why are you giving the things names, I thought you were all the same.”

Magnus laughs, the flashlight coming back down to its side, pointing the light at around hip length. “You ki- humans all think you know everything. You know little to nothing about us, and for the sake of sounding moronic, you should stop to think about that before you speak.”

“Then _inform_ me.”

“Why? So you can go back to your little safe house and use everything I say against my people? I don’t think so. I’m not a childe, I know better than to feed you _sensitive_ information.” Magnus huffed, turning abruptly on the heels of its shoes, the squeaking of the filthy water making the vampires brow furrow in what seems to be disgust. “But _you’re welcome_ for saving you, once again.”

“Again?” Alec asked with a scoff, following after him down this first tunnel. 

“You landed on me instead of the pavement when falling out of the second story of a building. Yes, I saved you again.”

“You didn’t do that on purpose, it doesn’t count.” Alec strode in front of him, moving quickly to get to the grate he and his people had come from earlier on in the night. He was annoyed, tired, and his whole body was throbbing in a pain he hasn’t ever had to feel before. Sure, he’s had his fair share of being in fights with both the living and the undead, but he’d never been bitten like that before. It left him lightheaded and slightly twitchy. This paranoia in his bones that made him think that if Magnus got a little too close he would instinctively karate chop him in the neck, whether he was lunging for his throat or not.

“It certainly does count, whether I knew I was going to save your life or not, I did. You can’t argue with the facts, hunter.” Magnus’ shoes were squeaking behind Alec’s, the light moving back and forth with the way the vampire walked.

“I can too, who says I care about being right?”

“That was obvious when you planned on coming here to kill things, but say that things killing _your_ things wasn’t according to plan.”

Alec skidded to a stop, water lapping at his body in protest to the change of direction. He turned abruptly, facing Magnus again. “One of my _people_. He wasn’t a _thing_ -,”

“There it is again,” Magnus says, cutting Alec off and pointing at him in a way that was accusatory. “Hypocrisy. Why are Kindred things, but your hunters are people? What is the difference? We both kill.” 

“We kill demons, you kill people,” he pointed out, “We’re doing a service to the people of New York and to God.”

“God, _right_. Has he written you all a ‘thank you’ note or is that just implied when you sign up for the job?”

Pointless. It was a pointless conversation.

Alec turned back around and immediately set off again- this time they were quiet. Neither of them said anything as they went further into the tunnels that would lead them back into the populated sections of the city. Much better than Magnus’ stupid idea of running all the way there out in the open. Stupid, loud-mouthed vampire. Finally, Alec got them to the last ladder they would have to use in these sewers, this one leading up into an alleyway beside a rundown apartment complex. Alec stood off to the side of the ladder, waiting for Magnus to go first so he could push open the sewer lid. “Go,” he said stubbornly, his arms crossing over his chest in wait.

The vampire rolled its eyes, Alec could see it even in the dim lighting. Magnus dropped the flashlight into the pool of water below them, the light flickering in defeat as its battery cartridge filled up with water and promptly short circuited the bulb until it just shut itself off. Magnus climbed up the ladder, one hand on the bar at the top while the other pushed on the lid until it eventually popped from its spot in the ground. Magnus shoved the heavy metal aside, and it made a loud noise when the vampire let it plop down on the concrete above.

They both climbed out up into the city once more, the night air was cool in the middle of February, it whipped around him and he swore he could feel snowflakes fall down on him the moment he stepped out. He didn’t see any though, not in droves, but every so often he’d watch one delicately float with the wind. Alec glanced over at Magnus, the sounds of cars whooshing by as they looked at one another left him even chiller than the weather.

They said nothing, just stared at each other, until eventually Alec turned away abruptly, sharply. He set off, about to make his way out of the alley, but stopped when he heard Magnus’ voice speak to him.

“You’re not going to try to kill me? You’re just leaving? That’s it, just like that?” The vampire sounds weary, like he didn’t believe that at all. Like he thought Alec would track him down later.

To be honest, Alec thought about it, about going toe to toe with him now that they were away from everything else. All of the chaos of the main battleground and everyone there; but that would just be foolish. He wasn’t in the condition to do much of anything, and he had a brother to save. People to get carried back to the Cathedral.

“I need to go home and get people to help my brother and everyone else,” he explains finally before setting off again, this time not looking back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments are extremely welcome !


	3. New York by Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m sorry these first few chapters seem to go so slowly! I want the entire world & all of the intended characters to set up stage so the speak. Thanks reading and liking/commenting/bookmarking ! <3

_**day 001 ; 3:28 am** _

While quickly striding out of the alleyway he feels a heaviness in his mind- something so thick and dark, this tar-like ink emanating from his brain and polluting his bloodstream with the blackness. It’s clogging his veins, and making a very determined journey to his heart. He recognized the churning in him as guilt. They had failed so miserably, he had been tasked with taking the helm of the ship and instead of pulling out a victory he was stumbling home alone, no one by his side, not even Jace. The ultimate warrior; if Alec could put _him_ in a bad situation, what good was he at all? 

He looked back constantly once on the sidewalk, making sure the vampire wasn’t stalking him- but as raddled as Alec was, he very well could be for all the hunter was worth at the moment. There were other people out tonight. Leaning against their parallel parked cars, smoking cigarettes and drunkenly slurring over their words. This was one of the nightlife strips of the city, after all. Every building on this entire block was still open and working well into the night- all sorts of sounds pouring out of them. Alec could see his breath, and everyone else’s, as he trudged forward. He crosses his arms over his chest, tugging them close for warmth, and he was still mourning his recently lost jacket. Which was ridiculous really, to care for a lost clothing item in the middle of something like this.

The further Alec walked down the streets, his eyes straight ahead of him to avoid eye contact with any passersby, the more noise heard. The sound of the wind whipping around him was drowned out by vibration under his feet and music thumping like a heavy drum in the back of his head. People were stumbling around a few feet in front of him, leaning against the dark brick of a pulsing nightclub; one woman was grabbing at a man’s belt, trying to tug it off while fumbling backwards, almost toppling over entirely. When Alec had to walk past them he moved over a few inches on the sidewalk, not wanting to be bumped into. 

He looked over as the front door to the dance club was shoved open, the opening and closing mechanism not allowing it to be moved as quickly as the drunk person likely wanted it to. When the door was open the music became fifteen times louder, red beams of light coming out of the place that seemed to fit the vibe of the gothic music streaming from its stereos. He could see the place was jam packed, but every person from where Alec stood out on the street looked just like a wiggling shadow, taking on the form of the music and living as its own handmade creatures. He ignored the person that had opened the door in the first place, not interested in making eye contact with a stranger; so as he walked ahead he was surprised to hear someone call out to him.

“Alec! Alec, wait!” It was a woman’s voice, light and airy, yet doused in liquor. 

He didn’t stop walking right away, only turned his head back to catch a glimpse, but he did stop when he saw the petite redhead following after him, her hair whipping around her head with the force of the wind, looking like a firey flame on her skull. It was Clary. A citizen of Brooklyn that Jace had become a little too friendly with. They weren’t supposed to date outside of their profession, so as not to put people in danger if a vampire with a personal vendetta against you decided to cut down the humans closest to you- Jace and Isabelle didn’t really mind that rule, they thought it one of the “optional ones”. Alec, on the other hand, knew none of the rules were optional.

She caught up with him with two graceless, stumbling legs, her hands flying out and gripping his uninjured arm tightly, nails accidentally digging into his skin, but nothing would compare to the other things he’s felt tonight. “Oh my god! I’ve been trying to call Jace all night! Take me to him, Alec, take me right now,” She demanded drunkenly, her breath smelling like cheap liquor wafting against his face.

He tried to yank his arm away but she was holding onto him like a determined cat in a tree, nails sunken in and resisting the firefighter. “-He’s working right now, let go.” He tries to pull away again, this time much more sudden and forceful. He manages to get his arm free but she stumbles forward, falling over into him due to the loss of the limb she was just using as a cane. “By God, stand up.” Alec grips her tightly by the elbow to keep her from eating the pavement.

“Working where? Why doesn’t he ever answer my questions about work?” The small redhead is pouting up at Alec, cheeks puffy and flushed red from all of the alcohol. The green, sharp emerald of her eyes were unfocused, hazy as they looked up into Alec’s hazel for immediate answers. She gasped before he could answer her; or more accurately, before he could lie to her. “You’re bleeding!” She cries, lifting her hand to try to touch the wound on his neck.

“Stop! Don’t touch it,” he hissed, gripping her wrist tightly, holding it so hard he felt like he could crush her small bones in the palm of his hand. He understood she was slightly incapable of gauging any situation properly when her mind was so addled with liquor, but it didn’t make his patience any thicker. He didn’t like her always trying to be around in the first place.

“Ow!” She cried, trying and failing to pull herself from the cobra’s grasp. “What happened to you? Oh my God, is Jace hurt too? Is that why he hasn’t called me back! You- um.” She glanced down at her shoes, cutting her own thought off completely. “I think I stepped in someone’s gum.” She began laughing, long and loud with her head thrown back like that was the funniest thing ever said. “What if I just got stuck to the sidewalk and froze here like a statue? What should my frozen pose be? This?” Clary stuck her tongue out at Alec and blew it- raspberry’d spit all over him, and begun laughing again.

“Disgusting,” He shouted, not only did he drop her hand but he shoved her back. Sure, she was obnoxious sometimes, but never like this. He hadn’t thought it was possible for her to get any more annoying; he is a big enough man to admit when he was wrong (sometimes). “Go back inside, okay? Just… get away from me right now, I’m not in the mood.”

“Oh my God, Alec!” She groaned, throwing her head back and screaming his name. “You’re _never_ , never never _ever_ in the mood! Come inside, you need to get help.” Clary insisted, grabbing his torn shirt collar and tugging harshly, stomping off in the direction of the club doors again, pulling Alec along. 

“No, no I need to go home,” he tried to fight her, but she pulled and pulled until he heard the fabric of his shirt ripping even further. “Stop pulling on my shirt,” he demands, following after her dutifully. Maybe he would be able to lose her inside of the club; there was likely hundreds of people inside, and she was clearly easily distracted while inebriated. _Fine_ , he decided. He’d lose her inside and she would never remember this in the morning.

The club was like a living creature, glowing red lights streaming in from the top of a stage, a DJ booth covered in fog like it was the eyes of the beast, the people were its guts, all working together to be one consecutive force. When one person moved, they all did, their bodies spinning and flowing with the beat of the music- a dark metal dance track, black was the theme for every night here. Almost all of the women were wearing eyeliner thick on their waterlines, looking like sharpie instead of pencil. They were either scantily clad, skin on display and littered with ink or henna; or they were decked out in a gothic ensemble, dark with exaggerated ruffles and drapes as far as the eye could see. The men wore gas masks often, for nothing but accessory, and their hair- everyone’s, was colored unnaturally in some way. Clary… well, Alec didn’t know what she was doing here, really. Even the bartenders fit in more than she did.

“How did you get so drunk?” He shouts, leaning close to her ear so she could hear him. “Jace told me you got him a fake ID, but it sucked.”

“-Jesus, Alec what do you think? I’m a pretty girl! Izzy told me pretty girls don’t have to pay for like nothing!” As if it were a beacon to the intoxicated, she was dragging him right over to the bar. Speak of the devil.

“What are you doing?” He asks, his body rocking accidentally into person after person, though he was a little too preoccupied to apologize for stepping on any spiked boots. Not like these people exactly gave a damn. It wasn’t like the streets of Brooklyn, no one cared if you touched them in the clubs, half of them are on ecstasy anyway. Which meant Alec _did_ care if he touched them.

_Gross_.

“The bartender had, um, has a first aid kit always! Always, always! I know ‘cuz I cut my finger open when I dropped a shot glass once!” She was screaming over the wave of dark music, it pounded into his skull like a bongo drum, leaving the beat imprinted in his mind. No wonder the civilians who spent most of their time in clubs did drugs, it was like your heart synced up to the beat when it poured over you, made it do what the song willed it to; he supposes if he was high he’d find it soothing rather than uncomfortable. Feeling like music could give him a heart attack if it wanted wasn’t something that put his mind at ease, especially not right now when he’s survived something much worse tonight. Defeat by music would just be insulting.

_…This morning? What is it, two? Three? Has to be._

The bartender was one of the scantily clad women previously mentioned. Her bra must have been three sizes too tight and it was the only thing she was wearing along with shorts that didn’t leave very much to the imagination- he could see the snake tattooed on her right ass cheek when they got up to the bar, his height allowing him to see mostly everything he both did and _didn’t_ need to see. That was definitely something he wished he could have unseen. Whatever for tips, he supposed. His job didn’t exactly consist on getting money, it was more so saving the city, the state. Clearing out demons gave you the gift of saving the civilians and the gratitude of God: and him. He saved him and his family too. Made the world a safer, cleaner place.

Clary leaned against the bar, her body weight relying on the power of her tippy-toes as she pressed her upper arms and chest against the bar to get the woman’s attention. “Excuse me! Do you- oh what is that!?” Clary was distracted by the pink drink in the woman’s hand as she passed it off to the appropriate paying customer. Alec wonders why the hell a pink drink would be on the menu of a place like this. “What was that?” She asked again as the woman got close, a fake smile plastered all over her face as she looked at the idiotic redhead.

“Sex on the beach,” she informed Clary, Alec rolling his eyes to the high heavens. “Would you like some of that?” The woman set her sights on him, her dark makeup making her look like a lioness and Alec her prey. He felt nothing but irritation. Why did women think they could do that? Control him with their boobs?

Not exactly his type, for a few reasons…

“I want one,” Clary jumped back in with a yell before he could even say no to the offer. He crossed his arms over his chest, huffing irritably and facing the other direction, his back to the counter as Clary made her demands for the drink. “Can I have a lemon on it? No, a lime!”

Alec’s eyes were scanning the room, open concept but too full of people to properly assess every way in and out unless close enough or on an elevated space like the stage. He saw no need to go up there or even comb the rest of the place, Clary would be so invested in her new colorful drink in a few seconds that he would easily be able to slip back out the front door like nothing even happened. As the bartender came back around with the tall, sloshy drink, Alec heard a new voice, a man’s voice, coming from beside him. He had ignored it until he realized the man was talking to Clary- this was his chance to go.

“Wait, you were going to pay for this all on your own? That’s ridiculous, let me,” the man offered her, pressing his body up against her in a very demanding way, as if to force himself into her, and slid a ten dollar bill out of his crinkling, new leather wallet. Once the bill was in the bartender’s hands he waved her off, “Keep the change.” One of his hands wound around the redhead’s thin waist, fingers like claws digging into her hip. 

She sipped unknowingly on the straw, sucking up some of her drink like nothing else was happening. Alec got a feeling he didn’t like, this uncomfortable churning in his stomach that left him a little less than willing to walk out of here without Clary, all of a sudden. His instincts, well, they were never wrong.

He uncrossed his arms and went up to Jace’s _friend_ , grabbing the stranger’s elbow tight, attempting to yank his hand off of her. “What do you think you’re doing?” He asked the man, able to pry his hold off of her with the unexpected touch. Once she was free he grabbed her small bicep and tugged her back over to him. 

“Ouch, Alec! That hurts,” she complained, but stood dutifully by his side, head falling to his shoulder like they were old friends. He didn’t see the trouble in pretending; whatever would send this creep away. Not only does the obligation to his brother ring inside of his ears, demanded Alec to look out for her, but his own brain classified Clary as nothing more than an innocent. It was his job to protect the innocents.

“How about you don’t hurt her. I was just buying her a drink.”

“She doesn’t need you to buy her drinks, I can do that,” Alec argued, beginning to drag the small girl away from the bar entirely, but she tugged back on his grip, trying to worm her way out of his hand.

“Stop! I want to stay here for refills after!” She cried, pulling away from him and stumbling into one of the stools screwed into the floor, it allowed her to lean against it to catch her balance. 

“I’ll buy you as many refills as you want honey, would you like that?” The guy asked, motioning for the bartender to approach again.

“I said back off,” Alec piped in, sliding between Clary and the guy with the predator eyes, the guy that gazed at Clary like she was something to eat and nothing more. Hmm…

“Oh my God, Alec, back off. You’re _so_ not my boyfriend.” She broke out into unexpected laughter, clutching her stomach from the weight of the chuckles and everything. “You’re totally gay! What do you care?” He just stared at her, his eyes dark and unimpressed at such a statement. He did not like when people did that, spoke his business out loud when random people he didn’t know where around them, it made him uncomfortable and nauseous. He didn’t like for his private information to be released, and especially not by someone who barely knew him. Stupid girl.

She shoved him aside, “Go get Jace,” she demanded of him as she joined the stranger’s side, handing off her empty glass to the bartender before he began to whisper something in her ear. She seemed reluctant to listen to him, but he didn’t seem to be in the mood to take _no_ as an answer. The man put one of those claws under her chin, forcing her eyes to stare into his. Whatever he said now, his eyes were forceful, and all Clary did was nod, this robotic thing like she was being reprogrammed entirely. Only doing as told. 

Alec had seen that trick before. Some of the vampires, they could do that. The very well-dressed ones; the ones in the suits, with pocket squares and shiny dress shoes. Alec didn’t trust those ones, they had an iron tongue, sharp and would cut down all of your shields like melted butter. It was why their mother didn’t like it when Isabelle went out on reconnaissance with him and Jace- she thought their younger sister would be too easily swayed… again. No matter how many times Alec assured her he would watch Izzy, the response was always the same, always untrustworthy of her only daughter. Alec thought it was unfair, to not give her another equal opportunity.

Alec’s brain flipped a mental switch, driving himself into work-mode once again, his hazel trained onto the moving creature, its arm around Clary and leading her out into the crowded dance floor. The vampire hunter straightened himself out and pushed off of the wooden bar, shoving through all of these people, trying to find them again but no matter which direction he turned his head he couldn’t see them anymore. The pulsing lights, strobing violently so as everything was pitch black one second, it was then burning red the next, left his tired eyes too disoriented to properly see anyone’s face or outfit to distinguish any of them from Clary.

He starts over again, spinning around and trying to shove his way back to the bar. Alec tries to think while he’s getting jostled around by sweating body after sweating body. The vampires they usually follow, they find their prey and lead them to the most secluded place within the immediate radius of the building they’ve hunted in. Alec knows even the bathrooms in this place were packed with people and even had long lines spilling out onto the dancefloor to wait for their turn inside, so there was nowhere inside that let the creature feed silent and hidden. He groans, tongue running over his bottom lip in thought, his hand rubbing at the back of his neck. He couldn’t let her die, that’s the last thing he needs, to get Jace back alive and then to have to break the news that he got his sort of girlfriend killed.

“The alley,” he decides suddenly. The only possible place to be alone near a place as packed as this is the back-alley behind the building. He needs a weapon, and after many, many months doing recon in the city, he knows the only weapon inside of the whole building was the gun behind the bar, or at least the gun that _should_ be behind the bar.

Alec shoves past people as forcefully as he can, going slowly once the bar was in sight. He needed to distract her, and the easiest way to do that was to cause a scene. He saw a man ordering his drink at the counter- big, tattooed, shirt practically ripping from the size of his biceps. Perfect. While walking past him he shoved a much smaller, frailer man in comparison into the bodybuilder, into him. His drink spilling all over him before eventually his glass fell to the floor, shattering all around him. Alec kept on walking, not looking back, but he heard the muscled man shout, and soon after he heard something much heavier than glass hit the ground. The floor under him rumbling with new, sporadic movements. 

“Hey! Security, someone get security!” The bartender shouted, shoving past the small door by the bar and yelling at the two fighting men, other patrons at the club trying to pry them apart while the security was running over, about to separate them with greater force.

Alec jumped over the bar, his body creaking with pain at the motion, tired and ready to collapse after a long night of fighting and losing. He saw a small safe under the cash register, it looked as if they’d got it from a hotel, one of the small ones in the back of your closet. He looked around and quickly grabbed a serving knife off of one of the shelves below the safe, and stabbed the hinges of the lock pad, prying the whole number-pad apart, the safe falling from its shelf with the force and landing on the ground, open and everything inside spilling out. There was in fact a gun, he traded the serving knife for that, and after a moment of hesitation he grabbed the zippo lighter as well. Before jumping back over the bar he pivoted while he was on his knees, grabbing a beer from a chiller full of ice and hopped back around, shoving the gun in the back of his pants and the lighter in his pocket.

The lighter had given him a much more effective idea.

Alec made his way out the door without suspicion while the bouncers were focused on the made up brawl, no one to see the gun or tell him he couldn’t go out onto the streets with open alcohol. Once back outside he could immediately think clearly again, no booming music or shouting people filling his head up with white noise any longer. The sounds of the honking traffic was nothing now in comparison. He forcefully popped open the beer and slid the gun out of the back of his pants as he made his way around the side of the building, the people stumbling around outside too drunk and busy with company to notice him, let alone follow after him. His boots made no noise against the pavement as he stepped carefully, slowly as to make no noise. He would need to do this fast- guns were loud and tended to attract law enforcement. Though in this side of city that would be a while. The civilians in the club would likely scatter, but that was a good outcome, not an inconvenience. 

He could hear two low voices, one familiar to him; the whispers of a controlled Clary who seemed like she was shaking, a frail leaf in the wind. She wanted to get away, but she couldn’t. When he peaked around the next corner he could seem them at the very dead end of the alley, not even the lights of the giant club sign all the way around on the other side touched them. Cloaked in darkness, and darkness itself, was the vampire. Alec had to purge it before Clary was used for blood, or even worse, killed in the hunt.

The vampire was too close to Clary for Alec to deliver it its final death the way he intended to, which is where the gun would come in handy. He forcefully tore another long piece of fabric off of his already ruined shirt, and he rolled it up, stuffing it inside of the beer bottle, the remaining cloth hanging over the neck. When the redhead started to flail a little bit, her body going into a fight or flight response, he could barely hear the vampire say something else to her, her chin locked tight in the palm of his hand, forcing eye contact to calm her shaking body down. 

The vampire hunter approached slowly, gun raised and cocked, he wasted no time then, afraid the beast would lunge for her throat, and shot it in the back of both knees and the back of his head. The vampire cried out in pain, stunned at the attack and quickly turned away from Clary, baring its fangs at Alec and hissing; a battle cry. The hunter hastily tossed the gun at the vampire’s head, a clanging noise ringing around the alley as it held its face. With that current distraction he wanted to call for Clary, but stopped when he noticed she was lying on the ground. Passed out from fear, most likely easier to do while piss drunk.

He dug around his pocket for the lighter while the creature approached quickly again, Alec only just lighting the fabric in time, and tossing the alcohol bottle while he was getting closer, but far enough from both Alec and Clary to be a safe distance. The beer bottle shattered against the vampire’s alabaster skin with the force of the throw, the glass going in every direction as the alcohol caught fire instantaneously. The vampire screamed, its body making sickening noise as dead flesh and expensive suit fabric burned and burned. Fire and sunlight were the easiest ways to bring final death on the things. It only took a minute of running around and rolling all over the cement like a chicken with its head cut off for the beast to die, its face twisted in pain as the flames continued to engulf its skin. Alec was insensitive to death by now, no longer did he stop and stare at the dead beings, wondering if killing _anything_ was right, or if it was all wrong. His mother taught him that such questions didn’t matter when it came to those creatures. They didn’t have souls.

Alec ran past the burning monster, crouching down next to Clary and trying to shake her awake, both of his hands gripping her shoulders. She didn’t budge even a little bit, her breathing just got louder like she was peacefully snoring in bed. It pissed him off, to have such a long distraction while trying to head home. He didn’t have time for this. He couldn’t dispose of the vampire right now, but he wondered if he didn’t have to. They turned to ash after being burned, maybe it wouldn’t take so long with all the alcohol? Maybe he would be able to leave it there. And Clary… he didn’t have the time to carry her all the way to her apartment. Wherever it was, he didn’t even remember. 

He sighed, straightening himself back up and glancing around, looking for a pay phone. None in sight, but he didn’t have change on him anyway. Alec hadn’t like to bring his wallet or phone along during a battle, but maybe from now on he would anyway. He could have already called his mother or Isabelle for help, everything could have been taken care of by now, his fear of shattering his phone shoved aside, he needed to bring it from now on.

The young adult sped out of the alley, his head craning to look around the corner, happy to see a bouncer standing back at the entrance to the nightclub. “Hey,” he called out to him, approaching with quick, purposeful strides. “There’s a girl passed out in the alley back there, she needs help.”

The bouncer rolled his eyes, his hand dipping into his pocket and pulling out a smart phone. “There’s always one every night,” he complained, typing out an emergency number and asking for a pickup. Alec was already walking away now, conscience clear of any guilt for Clary, knowing that someone was eventually going to come and drive her to either the hospital or home if she actually woke up and was able to cooperate. Maybe if she woke up disoriented and belligerently drunk they would throw her in jail. Either way, safe from predators, which meant he’d completed his job.

Now, with every distraction out of his way, he ran home. His body had a brief break from physical extrusion, those idle minutes fueling him to have a short burst of energy to send him off, his feet hitting the ground like heavy weights, heels digging into the dusty sidewalks until he was out of the bustling city and just on the outskirts, the buildings there few and far between. He could see the gargoyles protecting the Cathedral standing tall, their shadows casting a milky glow against the stone roof with the moon’s bright, ominous light. He was panting, heavy and weighed down as he shoved the doors open. The great entrance to the Cathedral was packed full of hunters sitting in the pews, a tradition as they waited for their brothers to return from the purge. 

“Alec! Alec, what happened?” His mother called out to him, stepping down from behind the podium, heels clacking against the limestone as she raced towards him. 

Isabelle was at his side in no time, wrapping an arm around his waist and pulling one of his over her shoulders. “Are you okay? You’ve got blood all over you,” She asked him, a shake in her voice that gave way to her obvious worry. Her voice washed over him like a soothing wave, his ears the thirsty shore, ready for comfort and caring company. His body sagged into hers, allowing her to hold him up.

“We were outnumbered, there was another group of vampires that showed up, and they attacked everyone, even the other vampires that were already there. Some of our people are still alive, I escaped to go get help. You all need to go there, now,” he instructed them.

“Go, get your weapons we’re heading to the battle site!” Maryse roared, the hunters following her instructions immediately and rushing down to the crypts to gather weapons for their rescue mission. “Jace? Is he okay?” She asked, fear burning in her eyes for her favorite son.

“I don’t know, he was trapped with a beast, last I saw. We got separated, I was thrown out of the second story window by the thing,” he explained, Isabelle gasping softly beside him as she gently ran her fingers over his ribs, trying to see if there were any breaks.

“Get him to medical, now,” Maryse commanded Isabelle, her voice carrying the tone of a leader in this time of turmoil.

Isabelle did just as told, no hesitation in her steps as she guided Alec along the entire expanse of the first floor until she finally got him in the room behind the prayer alters, their candles still burning bright with the hope of a successful and safe battle- looks as if their prayers were not answered this time around. All thanks to Alec and his terrible leadership skills. He sighed thickly as his sister sat him down on one of the medic’s cots, the doctors in the room immediately rushing over to his side.

“He’s bleeding consistently, look he’s been cut on his arm badly- and his neck. Were you bitten?” She asks, crouching down in front of him like a mother asking her child something important.

“Yes,” he responded, and was cut off right after, his sister standing up once more, her legs long and powerful as she strode across the room, her own high heels rivalling the sound of their mothers.

“Disinfect that until he’s sparkling, and if you need blood to give him take mine.”

“Are you feeling lightheaded? Is your vision blurry?” One of the doctors asked while the other grabbed all of the tools they would need to fix him, and piles of rags to wipe away all the grime off of his skin.

“No… no, my head’s just killing me and my neck. My arm, it won’t stop bleeding.”

“We’re going to stitch them up, lie down.” The doctor pressed a hand to Alec’s chest, forcing him to lie on his back. 

They took scissors and sliced his shirt open, cutting that and the make-shift tourniquet off of his body and tossing it all aside like rags. Though at that point that’s all it was, fabric barely hanging on anymore. He glanced over at his sister, who was sat at a table just a few feet from his cot, watching over him closely while also staying out of the doctor’s way, not wanting to slow his recovery down. She smiled sadly at him as she saw him staring at her, her foot tapping against the ground, leg shaking like she was trying to release all the anxiety from her body with this tic. That ran in the family.

“This is going to hurt,” one of the medical staff warned him just seconds before they poured alcohol over his skin, a rag dripping with it to clean the base of the wounds. 

He sucked in a heavy breath through his teeth, his jaw clenching with the pain that shocked his every nerve in both his arm and neck. The wounds foamed up with white suds eating away at the dirt, preventing an infection in the most painful way possible. 

“We’re going to stitch you up, and then bandage your wounds. Isabelle can feed you and give you water, but then you need to sleep, that is the only way you will recover all of your energy.” He watched the same doctor put rubber gloves on and prepare the surgical needle, cleaning the metal with antiseptic.

The pain of the needle going in and out of his skin was much less than the burns from the alcohol, small pricks and tugs that couldn’t even compare to the original slashing of a sword that created the wound, or the sharp, monstrous teeth that tore into his throat. Once the doctors were done they handed Isabelle some pain medication, nothing but regular Tylenol, and allowed her to give it to him, along with the newly acquired bottle of water in her hand. 

“Here, take these,” she said sweetly, handing him off the water bottle and two of the pills. “You need to sleep, I’ll make you some food when you wake up, okay?”

He took the medicine, but his eyes bulged at just the thought of whatever concoction she would whip up. “Uh… no thanks, I already almost died.”

She scoffed, this pure offended look on her face, replacing all concern as she gently (very, very gently) swatted at his non-injured arm. “Stop it, I’m trying to help. My cooking is _not_ that bad! You liked my spaghetti, right?”

“Sure… the parts that weren’t charred to a crisp.” She seemed defeated at his words, and so he ran his hand through her hair, trying to comfort her. “-You know I’m just kidding. Of course I did. Make me something when I wake up? Please?”

She broke open into a smile soon enough, patting his chest affectionately. “Of course, I’ll make you your favorite. Jace too, when he gets back.”

“Thanks, Iz… you’re the best.”

“I know,” she said happily, flicking her hair over her shoulder confidently. “You sleep now, big brother. You need the rest.”

“Alright,” he agreed, the longer he laid there the heavier his eyelids felt. Every blink was harder and harder to come back from, the world becoming less and less bright as the weariness from this evening’s fight, the toll it took on him. Before he knew it, he was passed out on the cot no matter how uncomfortable it was on his back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you are all enjoying ! <3


	4. Power Balance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Took some time away from writing to get my schooling in order, but with free time comes the revival of fic! Hope you all enjoy this chapter and the future of this fic - because I’m definitely going to be consistently working on this. Promise.
> 
> (sorry for any and all possible mistakes!)

_**day 002 ; 2:24 pm** _

  
   
Rushing water; the sound of a river cracking open the center of a bountiful forest, trees and their leaves creating a canopy of shade where shadows were born beneath. The sun was retreating, sinking low in the sky to paint it the color of blooming azalea’s right where the horizon met the earth – as far as human eyes were concerned. A beautiful optical illusion.  
   
There Alec stood, at the edge of a riverbank, his skin washed in splashing freshwater and the breeze; biting. Reddening his cheeks and the very tip of his nose in this February wind, every so often he would have to sniffle. Eyes cast their gaze along the winding bank, the color of the water distorted, rippling in all of these wrong and smudged ways: as if an oily paint brush had run across the perfect painting of a forest. No fish lived in this water, and after carefully focusing his vision on the depths of the increasingly darkening forest, Alec was certain nothing could inhabit this wavy, yet beautiful, wasteland.  
   
As if a switch had flicked somewhere in the land of the clouds, (with the man that could walk the moon and control the skies) everything went black. No more gorgeous, pink streaks along the horizon remained and instead everything was swallowed whole by night. It hadn’t occurred to him, not really, that he didn’t know how he got here – or where here even was – but he knew he wanted to get out, and quickly.  
   
Somewhere behind him was a rustling, the sound of leaves scraping against one another, branches bending to the whims of someone, or something, much stronger than them. Twigs cracked, as if stepped on carelessly, and then all of the noise stopped right as Alec whipped around, hurriedly scanning the opening of the woods as well as he could at this time of night. Instinctively, he felt as if he was being watched, so he gripped his own leg, dismayed to find he had no weapons attached to him. No holster, no handle, no safety. Thankfully, cowardly was not one of Alec’s defining attributes. As he stepped forward, closer to that boding darkness, the sound of crunching leaves bled out from under his feet, which were oddly bare, but it didn’t sound exactly like leaves: it sounded more like crinkling paper, as if this whole world was a bad drawing.  
   
Squinting into the woods, attempting to make out whatever was stalking him, he was straining to see in the pitch black, bleakness of this hour. Whatever hour it was here. In his unwavering focus, the relentless pressing forward of his steps, he was caught off guard. A slightly less black-and-white shadow than the others darting out to collide with his body; knocking against his chest and phasing through him like a phantom with only the outline of its body, allowing it to force him backwards onto the damp grass and foliage below him with just it’s heavy energy.  
   
Despite the fall not even being off the ground, Alec was panting like he was just shoved backwards off a high-rise, smacking down onto the concrete thirty stories down. His eyes crossed as he helplessly stared up at the sky, the stars not really stars but white dots, holes cut through black-blue construction paper. It didn’t take long for him to notice he couldn’t move, his limbs icicles, the droplets soaked into the grass had formed long strands, taking hold of him the way vines did to old brick walls before completely encasing his body. It seemed to freeze within moments, but time was weird in this place. It could have been hours.  
   
All he had time to do was blink once, and when he opened his eyes again it wasn’t that cutout sky, instead he felt hot breath ghosting over his cheeks, warming his skin from the chill of nighttime, and eyes looking much larger than regular eyes in their closeness to his own. Mouth opens, his jaw nearly dislocating with the amount of surprise as he desperately tried to force his arms from their prison, yet nothing would budge. Nothing cracked and released him the way he had hoped it would. How could he kill vampires, but fail to shatter some ice?  
   
These large eyes were flashing yellow at first, warning signs, but through that first blink they shifted back to black. Faded in with the rest of this place. It didn’t occur to him that eye color doesn’t shine in the dark, doesn’t stand out the way those had, in their catlike pupils and richness like the melting sun. Hypnotizing, warm breath smelled like it was meant to attract, meant to bend to whatever its prey adored because all Alec could gather was the scent of fresh pine – a nice air freshener – and a hint of a doughy bakery filled with slowly rising bread. In this haze he only barely recalled that a person’s breath couldn’t smell of bakeries or car accessories.  
   
Breathing bled into a low whisper against his cheek, the creature leaning in closer, so as it spoke its lips would just barely brush against the highest point of Alec’s cheekbone. This close to the river, or what was supposed to be a river, Alec tried hard to focus on just those quiet words, not wanting them to be distorted by the water-noise: he felt as if it was going to be something important. He didn’t want to miss it, since whatever it was trapped him in order for him to hear it.  
   
“Human.” The word was dripping wet and made his body want to cringe away from it. “Stay away.” It was drawn out ridiculously, but he could still make out the advisory.  
   
Wanting to ask _from what_ , the trapped desperately tried to wake his brain, but it was like the nerves weren’t connecting: his mouth still, like it wasn’t being told to move. Tongue not able to enunciate. Teeth forbidden from chattering. Floundering, mouthless, his brow puckered with this frustration – but the thing gathered up his thoughts and swallowed them whole. Molested his mind for the meaning behind the frown it should not have been able to see.  
   
“Don’t go wandering… where you don’t belong,” the faceless creature warns, sharp teeth hidden behind lips nipped at Alec’s face. The playful gesture only unnerved, since he couldn’t fidget away from it. “Stay with mommy… or you won’t wake up next time.”  
   
 _Wake up?_  
   
“Yes… you’re sleeping, idiot,” voice drawled, something thick and wet landing on Alec’s face, seeped into his skin and dribbled down his chin. It was too heavy to be pure water, too boiling to be spit. “Can’t you tell when you’re unconscious… or do the kine know so little these days?” The omniscient voice no longer echoed. No wonder and creepiness surrounding this unknown thing floating above him: a tone began to take form like this paper place was becoming real again. As if sensing he was putting all of the pieces together, it laughed coyly. “Very like you, to think you know everything.”  
   
 _You don’t_ know _me, we’ve only met once._  
   
“And I’m smart enough to have you figured out already,” it said smugly – him. It. Same thing to Alec, pointless and evil.  
   
There was something in this cloud of smug that wafted like a protective layer of fog to cover up the real, hidden picture. Something fake, a tactic used to protect itself or to scare enemies off by feigning the upper hand. It wasn’t really fearless, it was just marketing itself that way. “Listen to me,” it demanded, the tone taking the form of an irritated frown in Alec’s imagination. It could feel his mind wandering in its God-like way. “Stay away from us.”  
   
Suddenly, it was not so dark, not in the extreme _turn all of the lights off in your bedroom_ way, but in the real _stars are shining down on you as you bake in the moonlight_ way. The creature above him, while still a monster like he had imagined, was no longer a faceless one. It was faintly familiar.  
   
The vampire that had called itself Magnus, yet in this world even he was distorted. Not built quite right. The God of this place drew his mouth too wide, his fangs too long, and his eyes too deep; pushed down into the back of his eye sockets, creating new and horrible shadows inside his skull. Alec wished the magical lights would turn back off, so he could stare anywhere else but into those disturbing pits. Muscles tensed further when the imitation-Magnus shifted, hovered back directly above Alec’s eyes.  
   
 _Is it true? Am I dreaming right now?_  
   
That wide, torn mouth twitched, flipped upwards into a grin so unsettling that the ice was beginning to freeze over more-so with just the chill in Alec’s blood – should he even rely on an honest answer from a demon, especially a dream of one? Could it ever speak the truth or has God’s influence been completely wiped; the devil sewing its seams with tainted stitching?  
   
“No one said you were dreaming, do I look like a dream to you?” He asked, though the tone said it was all rhetorical. The eventual flick of his too-arched brows made it seem like he was thinking he was a dream in a much different sense, but that now wasn’t at all the time --- that’s how Alec had decided this couldn’t possibly be real, Magnus wouldn’t have let a chance to fluff his own ego pass him by. “I think warnings typically tend to come with nightmares.”  
   
A warning… to stay away from the vampires. How unoriginal, the icicle of a man had trouble refraining from rolling his eyes, the urge too strong to resist, so he did. Once hazel focused back on the crudely drawn vampire, he thought again in his direction - …was that necessary? Thinking at him?  
   
“No,” Fake Magnus interrupted his train of thought.  
   
 _Don’t waste your time, I’m not scared of you. Any of you. I have a job to do._  
   
The demon seemed to be contemplating this, but the air felt unusual, also poorly drawn – a fierce silence between them, very much unlike the awkward kind. The world began to pulse and stretch like it, itself, was breathing in. Filling its molten rock lungs and causing the ground beneath Alec to inflate and release; it made Alec’s jaw lock, his teeth scraping and cracking under their own pressure. The demon was pushing closer, hot breath was no longer ghosting, but seeping. Burrowing deep into his pores and making him feel disgusting, like his whole face was wet and soggy. He could only keep watching, unmissable horror in his eyes as fake-Magnus’ jaw unhinged, widened so crudely that he thought he was going to be devoured in one fell swoop. All of his teeth pointed and clawed inwards towards his bleeding tongue, looking nothing but beastly.  
   
“Not scaaaared…?” It moaned, distortion returning to its voice, without ever really closing its mouth. Mouth stayed wide, its tongue slithered across the pointed tip of each, sharp tooth, purposefully slicing the muscle open and letting blood nearer to black than a lively red drip down onto Alec’s forehead. Below his eyes, dropping onto his lips – he couldn’t move to stop it. “I can smell you… I can hear your heart racing…” it was growling now, lips pulled up into a snarl that made his heart react just as it had predicted.  
   
 _You’re not real, you said so._  
   
Was he attempting to convince it of his fearlessness, or himself?  
   
“Oooh, I am real,” Monster lurched closer more, a wicked tone in those words that almost seemed to be mocking Alec. “I have seen you…”  
   
 _And I sure as hell wasn’t scared of some vampire comedian._  
   
Silence lapsed between them once more, but this time it felt longer. Those deep eyes, the open mouth, it made every second tick like a minute. Blood was rushing to Alec’s ears, the noise of his heartbeat pounding in his brain filling up every empty moment. Suddenly, the demon jumped, a horrifying noise like a wolf jumping at a wild deer filled Alec’s ears as it saw its mouth, all of those disgusting teeth, swallow him whole, the hunter trying to call out, but still unable to save himself: it was a millisecond of heavy, guilty despair that ended with pitch black nothing.  
   
Alec jumped, his body convulsing as if he’d been jolted with live electricity, his skin shining with layers and layers of thickening sweat, his back aching from the position he’d been lying in. Chest expanding with quick gasps as he realized he was sitting up in bed, one of the cots in medical… nothing had really happened, he understood by glancing around nervously at his surroundings. The soft hum of the voices of his people not only down the hall, by the prayer altars, but here in this room. Many injured men (from the fight that he’d escaped from, clearly) were laying down, but a lot were wearing slings, casts, and ace bandages while leaning up against the stone pillars in the corners of each room. Each and every deep red curtain was pulled back as their medical team raced between hunter to hunter, hurriedly curing everyone as quickly as they could.  
   
Despite just being asleep he felt like he’d been awake for three days without rest. Swallowing thickly, Alec lifted his hand to touch his own face, make sure everything was where it was supposed to be, that there was no blood or teeth stuck to him. His muscles ached, his arm throbbing with the movements… he needed an Advil or something, that was abruptly clear to him as he struggled to sit up further in the cot. All parts of him were sore in some way or another, even the parts that didn’t bruise or swell.  
   
“Finally, big brother,” An extremely familiar and snickering phrase washed over him, forcing him to turn his head and strain his bruised neck – on account of the fangs that had ripped into him the… night before?  
   
 _What time was it?_  
   
Izzy’s thin heels clicked almost daintily against the wide linoleum, which was why he always thought it was funny that their mother had Izzy shuffling in and out of the medic center more than anything else: she wasn’t dainty. She should be letting his sister fight.  
   
She sat on the cot beside him, several heated cotton blankets in her hands for the injured. While patting Alec’s uninjured arm, she smiled, “How’re you feeling? You slept a long time.”  
   
“Like shit, do you have any painkillers?” Alec asks, one last try of sitting all the way up with his back to the metal frame failing. He wondered if he looked dazed; that nightmare was still on his mind, but like all dreams he felt it fading almost instantly now, every second that passed relieving him of the landscape, the darkness, that face… it was just getting blurry. The new emptiness in his brain allowed room for real, more significant memories. Leaving Jace behind, letting that vampire go, Clary at the nightclub; just as horrifying as that dream, but inescapable. “Where’s Jace? Did they find him?” Alec cuts to the chase before Izzy can ask someone for some Advil.  
   
She blinks, painted lips falling into something softer, cheeks round with an intake of breath that seemed too long to be natural. “Uh, he’s fine, actually. He was still trying to fight through with everyone else when Mom got there. He killed a bunch of vamps. He’s a hero out there, they’re making a statue in his honor,” she exaggerated, but it didn’t really sound like she was joking.  
   
Alec didn’t have to wonder how true that was, he only breathed a sigh of comfort at the news. “I should’ve known a hundred of them couldn’t kill him,” he laughed softly, picking at one of the loose bandages on his arm. He must have rolled around a lot in his sleep; believable. Hazel was unfocused and blurry, Alec continuously having to blink to uncross his eyes as his gaze swept the bloody bandages. He was visibly distracted, and he knew that was why Izzy was leaning into him further, trying to dip her head and meet his eyes.  
   
“Hey, let me get something for the pain, okay?” His sister pats his arm affectionately, a delicate touch that conveyed her worry for him.  
   
“No, I wanna talk to Jace---,” Alec is silenced, his sister glancing nervously around the infirmary with a tightening grip on his arm now so he couldn’t try to force himself out of the cot. Despite nothing too fatal or traumatizing happening, he still felt the need to divulge on Clary; Jace would want to know.  
   
“Alec, stay. I don’t want you moving around right now, I have some food in the oven for you. You need to eat before I let you walk,” his sister was adamant, pointing a painted finger harshly in his direction like she was scolding a schoolchild. Beginning to rise from the bed, as her grip loosened, so Alec waited for her to just go.  
   
There was no point in arguing with her, and he was well aware of that. Accompanying his resign was a swift shrug, this pitiful thing that displayed his frustration at being confined to a sickbed. “Fine.”  
   
“Don’t pout, I’ll be right back, okay?” Izzy probes, her body half swiveled away from him and prepared to grab her latest concoction – was she that proud of it, or did she just want to get back here quickly? Which was more suspicious?  
   
 _Iz always says Virgos are too quick to get suspicious._  
   
“I said fine,” he repeats irritably, his arms crossing over his chest – a dramatic show of emotion.  
   
There’s a brief pause between their exchanges now, Isabelle gnawing on the very edge of her bottom lip; what was there to mull over, exactly? Alec made a point in the way he tipped his chin in the opposite direction, refusing to look her in the eyes save for his peripheral. A second passes and his younger sister ultimately pivots away, striding towards the entrance to medical – and the moment she was gone from his sight, Alec was knocking the blanket aside with his unscathed arm.  
   
It hurt, to crane his neck, straining just where all his healing muscle lied, but that wasn’t nearly enough to deter him from finding Jace. Perhaps it was all in his mind, the strange vibes Isabelle had given off when Alec had expressed his desire to go find him, but it could very well just be her concern for his health.  
   
Didn’t mean he wasn’t going to go find out for sure.  
   
Wordlessly, the eldest Lightwood sibling passed through the prayer hall, walking back along the farthest wall so as not to interrupt the current afternoon service there, his bare shoulder rubbing against the cool stone of the Cathedral’s body. Normally it would have created a chill heavy enough to make him recoil, but bruised skin welcomed the faux icepack. Past the prayer hall was a long flight of wide, entrance stairs that was draped in a plush, red carpet. The railing was a faded silver, chipped and worn where hands slid and gripped the smooth wood. Generations upon generations of their Society has used these same steps to go up to their rooms, to assemble in one of many meeting rooms, to test new weapons in the smaller training spaces on the third floor. Just rooms with floors made of mats and daggers hug up where holy paintings would commonly be.  
   
That’s where Alec checked first, and after each and every training room was quickly inspected, he felt his eyelids become heavier. Each blink a small weight pressing down onto tired hazel eyes. Closing the door to the last room on this floor, Alec’s stomach rumbled angrily: the hunter shushed his own body, an angry glare sent to an innocent tummy. Was it the hunger that was draining him this badly?  
   
Alec is content to blame his nightmare instead of himself.  
   
Feet drag him restlessly back down the stairs, the second floor was full of offices and bedrooms: meant to be the most lived in section of the Cathedral and it certainly was. Every room was decorated in righteous crosses and handmade stitching from families past who poured their hearts and souls into making this a place to call home for those who put their lives on the line for the city. The Inquisition had provided most of their funding, but it is always decided to be better spent on silver weapons and medical supplies rather than pillowcases and silk sheets. Alec agrees with their current budget, but it’s not as if the government is really hurting for money… can’t the taxpayers shell out some more dough for a nice fluffy comforter during the winter?  
   
Quilts are nice enough, he guesses. If you like holes letting all the cold in.  
   
Before tackling the next flight back down to the first floor, Alec makes a right down the last corridor to reach the furthest room – he was already up here, why not see if Jace was talking to mom in her office.  
   
Always did he keep his eyes forward down this hallway; his mother had decorated it in honor of his father. Small, respectable photos of him and Max lined the walls… training, speaking, smiling, nothing that was personal to them, but enough that everyone who would come down here could remember them. Unable to ignore though was the expertly painted portrait at the very end of the hall, hung a few inches above tall, white candles that smelled of linen and baby powder. In the frame stood all of the Lightwoods – from left to right: Alec, Isabelle, Robert, Maryse, Max, and Jace. They all had a hard, blank look on their face like all of the portraits from the 1800’s, just with an incredibly modern spin on the painting techniques. It looked more like someone had taken the photo on their cellphone and then put a painting filter on top of it.  
   
He remembers the morning they stood there for that; for six hours. His mother had insisted that it needed to be done traditionally. Properly. Max complained that he was hungry throughout the entire thing, always fidgeting with his too tight clothes and trying to get Izzy’s attention so he could make her laugh at some stupid face he was sporting. Izzy had been just as tired and annoyed, but she would laugh every single time for him, no matter how hard they were both scolded for not sitting still.  
   
He hated that fucking picture.  
   
A roll of his eyes and he found that his mother’s office door was slightly cracked: which was a good sign that Jace was likely inside, and maybe they wouldn’t be too long then if they weren’t exactly hurting for privacy. Alec respectfully decided to peak in so he could know if he was inside.  
   
Tip-toeing, Alec tipped his upper body forwards like a literal leaning tower, triumphantly nodding once he caught the image of Jace facing Maryse’s desk, one of his arms stretched out over the back of a second empty chair beside his, while their mother was speaking. As always, the look on her face was hard: no lines, no obvious wrinkles, and maybe that was from a lack of major expression throughout her decades. Always rapt and calculated, no longer was she explosive or petulant (Alec wasn’t sure when he and his siblings would dip out of that phase of life.)  
   
“Not exactly what I was thinking,” Jace spoke evenly, no inflection in his voice that pointed this conversation in a particular direction from an eavesdroppers point of view.  
   
Not that Alec was spying on them, he was just… waiting. It wasn’t his fault they didn’t want to close the door. Hunter leaned backwards, away from the crack in the doorway so he could, instead, press back against the wall closest to her door, his hands holding each other behind his back in wait. A feeling in his stomach (not the hunger) made him believe this was about last night, no matter how little he’s heard so far. What else could they be talking about in private? Never mind the fact that it’s going on without Izzy and Alec for a reason.  
   
“No?” Alec can hear Maryse respond to him, “You’re a hero, Jace. After what you did alone out there… keeping your people alive. Killing all those demons in the process: you impress me more and more every time I send you out.”  
   
A pang of guilt scrunches his eyebrows together, underappreciation bolting through him; Alec continues listening to her speak.  
   
“With everything you do for me, son, it’s clear you’re the leader they need now that Robert is gone,” Maryse is sighing as she speaks, but Alec can hear the utter sincerity in her tone, even from this distance. It created something man-eating inside of him. “I’ll talk to Alec when he wakes up.”  
   
It’s like an internal wave crashing against the inside of his skin, forcing his feet to move and his mouth to speak – the pure secrecy behind this conversation is what really gets under his skin and makes it crawl with betrayal. Why the hell is Jace getting praise at Alec’s expense?  
   
“Talk to me about what?” Alec demands, attempting to force an even tone from himself as he simultaneously shoves the door open wider. Revealing himself from the metaphorical shadows.  
   
Maryse blinks in astonishment, clearly not expecting to see him here right now. Dark eyes scan all of her son’s injuries, it was obvious she was wondering if he was in the condition to be climbing stairs and starting arguments. Jace whips his neck around, eyebrows raised in slight shock as well, but Alec knew his brother well enough to read the guilt on his face like an open book.  
   
“Alec,” Maryse greets plainly, disappointment already substantial in her voice. Leaning back in her comfortable, leather swivel chair, the matriarch brings her hands together; neatly folded. The picture of bad news. “Good that you’re awake, I was worried about you all night. Have you eaten?”  
   
“No, what are you two talking about?” Straight to the point, why play dumb?  
   
A roll of her neck and a small cough from Jace, the tension only built itself higher. “Honestly, Alec, last night was a complete failure on our part. You and everyone else were well aware of what I expected to come of that pursuit. It seems that only a few people were actually able to purge any beasts, and that is entirely unacceptable when everything was handed to you-,”  
   
“It was a failure on our part or my part?” Alec interrupts, already foreseeing how this was going to go.  
   
And it was bullshit.  
   
Mouth pulled into a flat, unimpressed line, Maryse speaks again only after a long breath was pulled in through her nose. “Yours,” it’s hard when she finally responds, his tone unfavorable to her. “It should have been simple. I orchestrated each and every lead on that pursuit, all you had to do was follow them up and lead the hunt. How hard is it to walk a line?”  
   
Jace takes a breath, his back straightening out like he was going to jump in, but Alec didn’t allow for the room. Instead the eldest strides further into her office, not bothering to shut the door behind him either, since they didn’t even have the decency to why should he hide his words? “Much harder than usual when-,”  
   
“Excuses, honestly.”  
   
“Not really, I told you that when we got there so did more vampires. Everything broke out at once, mom, I didn’t have the time to plan for an escape, we were fighting for our lives instantly- it wasn’t as easy as we thought it would be,” he’s talking with his hands, ignoring the pulsing of his tense muscles. He can feel veins rising in his neck from distress. “It was two against one on every side: they were even fighting each other.”  
   
“So you mean to tell me that you had help and still couldn’t do it?”  
   
Silence follows, the harsh lines now slicing through her forehead mock Alec like she was trying to express his stupidity through her mere expression. The stain glass in her office leaves beautiful colors to unfurl over them and the plain crème carpet; all Alec can see is the red of Christ’s bleeding heart paint itself across the side of Jace’s face – a very symbolic image for this moment.  
   
 _Why aren’t you saying anything?_  
   
Having taken too long to respond, Maryse continues before Alec, drawing his attention back to her. “There’s no excuse, you just weren’t good enough to lead them out of there Alec, plain and simple.” It’s straightforward, how she cuts him down: he wasn’t her son right now, he was her subordinate. “You-,”  
   
“I need another chance. I know what I’m doing, and I’m good at-,”  
   
“Enough,” She commands, one of her previously folded hands raising briefly before smacking itself down against the even, oak wood tabletop. Her voice was not deeper or louder than Alec’s could be, but she held a deafening conviction in her actions; there was nothing to do but listen.  
   
He physically bites down on his tongue, teeth digging harshly into pliant, wet muscle enough to scrape and sting with the pressure. Jaw pops with blatant anger: for whom, him or his mother? After all, it was his own fault for pissing her off in the first place, apparently.  
   
“You clearly need some more rest before you come in here and talk to me, because it’s appalling… that you believe you have the authority to talk back to me that way. If I tell you that you weren’t good enough, take it for a fact, Alexander Gideon.” Her words are venom, eyes darkening an entire shade as they pierce through him. “Go back to medical. Now.”  
   
Reprimanded, cowering like a beaten dog, there’s nothing Alec can say that would properly get across his emotions in a respectful manner, so instead he stares at Jace for a long, static moment. His brother’s shoulders are tense, angled up towards his head like he was folding in on himself as a way to keep quiet. Feelings of betrayal aside, Alec couldn’t take it personally that Jace had nothing to say to their mother. All that would happen is an even bigger, much more explosive argument between all three of them. Open larger, heavier doors that would be complicated to shut again.  
   
“Mom?” Soft, appalled voice rings behind Alec, and he needn’t look to know it was Iz. “What’s going on?” Despite the question, it’s guarded and tense, Alec assumes she heard mostly everything, or at least enough to feel the need to become defensive in his honor.  
   
“Take Alec down to medical, Isabelle, he needs more rest.” Flippant, dismissive. She quite literally waves her hand at her blood – children, much more content to be alone with Jace again as soon as possible.  
   
Alec takes the hint and abruptly does a 180 so he could slide out of her office, past a stupefied Izzy holding a big plate of steaming pasta. It looked like it was garnished with multiple leaves that Alec hasn’t seen before, as well as an oddly green-tinted sauce; so rather than enticing another growl, his stomach lurches.  
   
Flying down the hall, his long strides hard to keep up with in high heels and short legs, Izzy is tackling two to three steps per his one. Nearly racing to keep his even pace. “Alec, what happened?” She asks, the fork rattling against the expensive china they kept in a hutch beside the fridge in the kitchen.  
   
“I don’t know why you’re asking me, I know you know he was in there,” Alec accuses, emotions still running high. He tackles two steps at a time, bolting down the stairs faster than his sister possibly could while juggling a literal full plate, and he was grateful for that so she could stop asking questions.  
   
She didn’t, but a man could dream.  
   
“Excuse me?” She shouts after him, a clanging noise ringing out as she hits the floor after the last step. “Okay… yes, I did, but I didn’t know what about. Or that you would go in there and piss mom off!”  
   
Scoffing, “You could piss her off by breathing the wrong way,” he says.  
   
“Alec,” Izzy tries again, ditching the plate on a pew they’re passing by and catching Alec on the arm before he can disappear into medical. She whirls him around, forcing eye contact between them. “What happened? Talk to me.”  
   
“What do you think? I can’t do a simple mission and she cuts me off, that’s what happens when you screw up as bad as I did,” he sounds incredibly resigned, refusing to meet her eyes any longer for fear of seeing a similar disappointment in him, he starts to count the ceiling beams that flowed in an even line towards the center of the cathedral’s arch. “She wants Jace to take dad’s place. I know she does.”  
   
“Did she say that?” There’s fire in Isabelle’s voice, like she’s prepared to march back upstairs.  
   
“She didn’t have to. She made it pretty clear, trust me.”  
   
“Dad wanted you, Alec, you know that, everyone knows that. She can’t just go behind his back-,”  
   
“It’s not behind his back, Iz, he’s dead.”  
   
Cruel, he knows, and Izzy is left floundering for a moment, her mouth flopped open and waiting for words to fill it by themselves, but eventually it closes. His sister sighs, head falling so she was left doing nothing but admiring her shoes instead. Alec follows the flow and looks from the ceiling to her, watching her face carefully. She’s twitching by her eyes and mouth, the slightest pulling downwards of skin that alludes to battling tears… it fills him with so much more guilt that he wonders when he’ll start to bleed that instead of blood.  
   
Wanting to take it back, he racks his brain for a way to change the topic. “Hey, I ran into your friend last night on the way home… Clary. She was drinking her weight in liquor at the Red Fang, ironically enough a vamp was scoping her out and I had to ash it.”  
   
Izzy straightens out instantly, her big brown eyes lighting up hilariously. “Really? Is she okay?”  
   
“Yeah, it took her out into the back alley, but I don’t think it had the chance to bite her.”  
   
“How’d you kill it?”  
   
“Homemade Molotov… a beer bottle and a piece of my bloody shirt.”  
   
“Holy shit,” Izzy laughs, covering her mouth with her hand to keep the stray giggles inside. “You get more and more creative every day, I swear.”  
   
“What else was gonna be in a bar that I could use as a weapon? Alcohol is a convenient abundance.”  
   
“Okay, true.” Almost like a flick of a switch, Isabelle shifts her attention onto something of upmost importance, giggles gone. “What about Clary?”  
   
“What about her? I told you she’s okay.”  
   
“Yeah, but did she get home okay? Does she remember what happened? Did she watch you kill it?”  
   
“Oh… no, she passed out before I killed it, I’m pretty sure. She was smashed, Isabelle, and I mean that. If she remembers anything I’m sure it’s choking down shots.” And after a second of thinking. “And I told the bouncer she was passed out back there, he called someone for me so I could get back home.”  
   
“You didn’t stay with her?”  
   
“I thought Jace was getting killed back there, I wasn’t exactly free to babysit at the moment.”  
   
Rolling her eyes, she starts to turn slightly so she can glance back at the towering staircase. “We should go tell him, he’ll want to check on her.”  
   
Following her gaze, it’s very clear she wants to bound back up the steps just to talk to Jace about his girlfriend, Alec knows better than to think he’s done talking to mom already. They probably have a mountain of shit to go through… he had when he was the one being groomed for the symbolic throne. “Yeah right,” Alec mumbles bitterly, “I’m sure he’s busy.”  
   
Nodding, Izzy decides to agree with him. “Probably… then I wanna go see her. Will you watch my back? I’m gonna sneak out of here.” His sister is looking around like a paranoid addict wondering who was creeping on them. “Mom wants us all inside today to regroup.”  
   
“And she’s right,” despite their argument, Alec agrees with her orders willfully. “Didn’t you hear me when I got back last night? The vampires were fighting each other, and if that doesn’t signify a war of some kind then what does? We need to stay off the streets, we don’t know who’s out there watching out for us, waiting. They could be battling each other out there somewhere right now.”  
   
Unmoved by his warning, Isabelle hardens her facial expression further, arms crossing over her chest in clear defiance. “First of all, it’s the middle of the day, if they were out there right now then I’m sure the sun beat them to it. Second of all, she’s my friend. Our brother’s girlfriend. I have to go make sure she’s okay.”  
   
“You can’t use your cellphone? It’s not the twenty-first century or anything.”  
   
“And say what?” She puts on a mocking face. “Heeey Clary, how are you after a vampire tried to suck your blood last night?”  
   
“I was thinking something with a little more common sense, but okay.”  
   
“I’m leaving, Alec, so come with me if you’re so worried… otherwise, don’t let mom catch me.”  
   
Playing the distraction for Isabelle wasn’t something he’s very skilled in, that involved too many convoluted lies and sweaty palms.  
   
   


* * *

_**day 002 ; 4:55 pm** _

  
   
New York was cold today. No snow just yet, but every inch of Alec’s cheeks were tingling, blood pooling at the very tip of his nose and just under his eyes, barely managing to keep him warm there. He’s as thrilled as he can get, once they step in from the cold, after the past 24 hours he’s had: counting the time he spent asleep, because he couldn’t even be left alone inside his own head.  
   
Not literally… he knows his brain made that up. Not that he was still thinking about it or anything.

Just the real Magnus would come to mind. After those nightmare-warnings, the obvious vampire war, all of that new vampire jargon... everything was piling on top of him: a mountain of stresses. You can’t google the types of questions he wanted to ask, and knowing that if he found out the right answers that maybe mom would give him another chance- God, all he wanted to do was be useful.  
   
Clary’s building lobby is small, nothing but a few vending machines and a long wall of mailboxes filling up the limited space. A single security guard was leaning against a push door labelled _staff only_ , reading a car magazine, while a small radio hanging on the wall played a home improvement podcast. Something about the difficulties of picking a backsplash for your kitchen that would complement wood floors. With deeper inspection, Alec could see the edges of the guards magazine was overlapping – like he was hiding another one inside of that. If he had three guesses as to what it really was that he was looking at, he’s sure he would get it on one.  
   
Izzy makes a face, apparently coming to the same conclusion. “Ew, he’s panting.”  
   
“Stop, just- take us to her floor, please,” Alec presses irritably while leading her, with a hand on her shoulder, to the elevator directly across from the water bottle vending machine.  
   
Stepping inside once the elevator comes down to the lobby, Izzy takes them to the third floor, room 6C. It smelled like ocean spray Febreze in the hallway, almost as if someone comes through here periodically to spray everything down until it’s covered up the usual scent in here.  
   
“Be nice,” Izzy warns before rapping on Clary’s door, knuckles creating a loud enough knock for her to hear.  
   
“When am I not nice?” Head cocked, arms crossed, lips pouting… wasn’t he picture perfect in the kind department?  
   
“You’re right, what am I thinking?”  
   
The door gets yanked open quickly, and Alec hopes Clary at least had the sense to look through the peephole first. The hinges on the door squeak and pop like water had seeped into the wood and made it swell. Does the building leak?  
   
“Hey, Iz! Alec,” Clary greets him with a twinge of confusion, but pulls his sister into a brief, friendly hug. Behind her Alec can see into her apartment, and the scent of paint and acetone wafts in his direction. By the stained state of her clothes, headphones hanging off of her shoulders, Alec gathers she was preoccupied before they showed up. “Good thing I took a pee break or else I wouldn’t have been able to hear you guys.”  
   
“Painting away, Picasso?” Izzy teases, stepping forward after their hug concluded, and Clary takes that as a hint to shuffle to the side, motioning for the Lightwoods to come in. “I hope we’re not bothering you while you’re in the zone.”  
   
“Hardly.” The door closes behind them with a forceful little push to make sure it actually fits in its threshold. “I had to paint over two prints today, it’s like nothing is coming together for me lately. I’m having trouble sleeping.”  
   
“Is that why you were partying hard last night?” Izzy asks, a taunting raise of her brow thrown to Clary as she walks backwards towards her friend’s living room. She drops down onto the couch without looking, instead gauging its proximity when the backs of her legs are grazed by the linen fabric. Alec has to give it to her, it is an incredibly subtle transition into the conversation. “Alec told me he saw you out.”  
   
Clary surveys both of their faces with an embarrassed flush on her cheeks, laughter unable to do much but bubble out of her. “Oh my god, the Red Fang. I remember now… I saw you outside the club right before I was gonna walk home,” she points at Alec. “Did I say something totally horrible?”  
   
Alec shrugs, trying to keep his face from looking completely irritated. “Nothing worse than the usual,” he quips. “Do you not remember?”  
   
“God, no.” Clary shakes her head, unwrapping her headphones off of her and places them on the counter before joining them in the living room; more specifically, joining Isabelle on the couch. “I feel like I blacked out at some point, but I can’t remember when. Everything’s… I don’t know. Blurry.”  
   
“You followed a stray cat into the alley after I saw you, I told the bouncer to call you a ride.”  
   
“Sounds like drunk me,” she agrees easily enough, and Alec considers this a successful mission. Could they go home now? “So what’s up, guys?”  
   
“Just stopping by, when Alec mentioned he saw you I wanted to see my girl, is that so wrong?”  
   
“No,” Clary dismisses, leaning into Izzy playfully, but her face goes serious rather quickly, almost as if she just tasted something tangy. “I just wish Jace would adopt that mentality. I mean, if his siblings can come see me, you’d think it wouldn’t be so difficult for him.”  
   
Usually, Alec would have something snarky to say, but his aggravation towards Jace and his mother haven’t subsided, so he laughs distastefully instead. The redhead shoots a look in his direction, but Izzy jumps in rather quickly, getting her attention back. “I know. I wish he wouldn’t work so much, I tell him all the time, but he doesn’t listen to me,” Nonchalant, the way Isabelle says this, almost like she’s used to playing the role of an angel so Clary wouldn’t ever kill the messenger.  
   
How often do Izzy and Jace come over here and play cover-up with each other’s lies? It pisses Alec off almost, thinking about their hidden life here with the civilians. Did it comfort them to pretend to be something they weren’t? To chameleon a new life away from the church? It was insulting to him, the blatant danger they put themselves in by just being friends with people like Clary.  
   
Tittering back and forth like noisy birds, Alec decides to ignore the two of them, instead glancing around and shifting his weight back and forth from foot to foot. Tapping his fingers against his hip, it was written all over his face that he wanted to get out of here and get back home before they got caught. It took thirty minutes to walk down here alone, and the sooner they started walking back the less chance they had of getting caught; in the middle of sundown, no less.  
   
Speaking of: Alec stress-checked his phone for the time. “It’s almost five-twenty, Iz,” Alec announces, not caring that he was interrupting them.  
   
“So?” She dismisses. “We just got here.”  
   
“It’s that late? Shit, I started painting at nine this morning, my projects deadline is coming up… are you guys hungry?” She switches the subject, clearly not in the mood to sit and paint for much longer today. “I was gonna order a pizza for dinner, but I think I have some boxes of spaghetti in there or something. Probably even bread.”  
   
“Probably?” Alec asks, raising a brow at her.  
   
“Yeah,” civilian grimaces. “Though it might be moldy. I haven’t actually gone to the store in like two weeks.”  
   
“A pizza’s fine,” Izzy scoffs, uncaring of both Clary and Alec’s respective concerns. Alec, on the other hand, was insulted that she wanted to stay for that long. “Oh, calm down it’s not like either of us want to go back home,” she chastises her elder brother for the look on his face.  
   
“Alec just doesn’t want to be around me. Must run through the men’s genes in your family.” Another jab at Jace.  
   
“Jace is busy,” Alec finally defends him, an icy burn in his throat left behind from the coldness of his tone. “You were just as annoying about this at the club. Maybe you should just break up with him if his career is such a concern for you.”  
   
Ah, what has it been, ten… fifteen minutes? A new record, if you ask him. Usually they start to snap at each other within the first five minutes.  
   
A roll of her eyes and a scoff, Clary is nodding her head as if she had also been expecting this. “Oh, you would just love that wouldn’t you? Jace would never leave me so you’re just relying on me to do it now.”  
   
“Never say never.”  
   
“Alec,” Izzy warns.  
   
“You didn’t have to come here, you know. The only reason I even let you in is because of Jace.”  
   
“The only reason I come here is because of Jace, so don’t worry, we’re both sacrificing something.”  
   
“Okay, enough.” Isabelle stands up, making sure Alec’s eyes move over to her now. “Stop it, will you?” Turning back to look at her friend, Izzy places a gentle hand on her shoulder. “It’s been a bad few days for them, that’s all. It’s been weird at work.”  
   
“That’s enough about work,” Alec intervenes. “And Jace, and everything else. You both talk too much and I shouldn’t have come here with you.”  
   
“Why did you?” Clary spits, “I don’t want you here.”  
   
“Trust me, I don’t want to be here. Let’s go,” He instructs his sister, moving rapidly towards Clary’s front door and motioning for his fellow hunter to follow after him. She didn’t budge an inch so it only created more friction within him, all of his bones aching to just ditch her.  
   
“Maybe there wouldn’t be so much shit between us, Alec, if you all would just open up a little bit.” Clary shifts this into a way to push her own agenda of issues. “Instead of being so secretive all the time. I mean, I barely know you and when I feel like I know your siblings you show up and make things weird again.” Looking at Izzy, Clary becomes even more serious. “You’re not the same when you and Jace hang out with me alone. Seriously, what is Alec not playing along with that’s gonna make you two so nervous for me to find out?”  
   
“You’re paranoid,” Izzy responds flatly, mouth a flat line, and she looks just like their mother. “There’s no big secret, Alec doesn’t like anybody!” She is trying to rationalize this for her friend, but Alec can smell the desperation coming off of her. You cannot just will someone to believe you, they weren’t the vampires, they had to be convincing and Izzy just wasn’t.  
   
“Then why do you both look like you’re about to run away?” Clary accuses, gesturing to both of them with her hand: Izzy still standing by the couch, and Alec just waiting by the front door for the cue that he can leave. “You can’t even handle this conversation.”  
   
“There’s no conversation to be had, Clary.”  
   
The women go back and forth, mentions of Jace flying between them nonstop and even Alec’s name was used next to a few rude words. Not a fight, but a discussion full of paranoid _what-if’s_ and deluded _how-come’s_. If this is how it has to be sometimes, why would his siblings continue to entertain this? It only creates problems.  
   
Speaking of the devil, Alec’s phone begins to vibrate from his back pocket, and only one person calls him randomly throughout the day. Considering what happened, Alec doesn’t exactly want to pick up, but even less does he want to sit here and listen to them bicker for even another minute. Turning minutely away from them, and without any attention, he answers the phone. “Hello?”  
   
Well enough, it is Jace on the other end. “Hey, where’d you guys go? I wanted to talk to you, but mom’s in a mood.”  
   
“I can’t talk,” Alec responds flatly, fully aware of how childish he was being, he just didn’t care. Izzy and Clary don’t even look at him, instead they’ve gotten comfortable on the couch and his sister seems to be comforting her (now slightly crying) friend.  
   
“You’re being a woman right now, just speak up if you have something to say to me.”  
   
Silently excusing himself from the apartment, Alec decides it’s best he slips out into the hallway to have this conversation with his brother, lest Clary hear something to set her off even further into the spirals of insanity. “I’m at your girlfriend’s house,” Alec reprimands, unamused with the way Jace had spoken to him. “Sorry, I don’t want her to hear something she shouldn’t… not like she isn’t adamantly sure that you and Izzy are hiding something from her anyway.”  
   
“Don’t even start with me about that right now, Alec, I’m sick of having the same argument with you.”  
   
“Better than a new one.”  
   
“So you are pissed at me.”  
   
“Why is everything always about you?”  
   
“Oh my god,” an annoyed groan from the other end of the line. Jace sighs heavily into the receiver before trying to change the subject back. “Why are you at Clary’s?”  
   
“Other than the fact that all she does is bother our sister, wondering where you are and what you’re doing, so someone has to say something because you won’t? No reason, a vampire just tried to suck her dry last night and I had to ash him.” 

“Alec, you’re not fucking funny.”

“I’m not joking. On my way back last night Clary stopped me outside of the Red Fang, downtown. A vampire was hunting her, I burned him in the back alley.”

“Why was she at Red Fang? She told me she was studying.”

“...Really?” Incredulous, Alec scoffs. His priorities were all out of wack. 

“No, no, thanks, Alec. You saved my ass twice since yesterday,” Jace sounds sincere, care in his voice. Or maybe it was just guilt from being crowned favorite child. “If it wasn’t for you I would have lost Clary, and we all would’ve died last night if you didn’t get backup. I tried to tell mom that we should all be kissing your ass, but she only cares about counting ashes, and you know that. It has nothing to do with me being better than you- I’m not.”

Alec is stunned, watching the toe of his boot pick at a piece of the carpet curling up off of the floor in the hallway, phone quietly pressed to his face. It meant a lot, coming from his brother, but it would have meant more if his effort had mattered to the one person he was trying to prove himself to. Jace must’ve sensed his brother’s inner turmoil, because he fills the blooming silence quickly.

“Hey, how did you get out of there, by the way?”

For a split second, the eldest is confused, his motions of kicking up the old carpet pausing before he realizes the last time Jace had seen him was after he was flung out of the window like a lifeless doll. Not mentioning anything about that had been chalked up to being distracted; yet shame was likely the culprit.

How could he tell them he was forced to help one leave after the already major failure. Resuming his monotonous jabs at the carpet, a soft sigh leads his words. “Landed on that vampire out there.”

“No shit? I was wondering what happened with that. How’d you kill it?”

“I needed help out of there. My arm was fucked - good thing too, got bit trying to run back to you. Magnus staked it before it drained me.”

“Magnus?”

“No. You know what I mean, the vampire: it talked a lot. A lot of code words I didn’t get. It made me feel like there’s a lot we don’t really know about the enemy, Jace.”

“Wait, so how did it get away? You ran away?”

“What?” Was he not listening to his concerns? “No. We came out of the sewers and I just went home, that’s when I walked past the club. The vampire didn’t try to fight me, better anyways, I didn’t have the energy. Who knows if I would have won.”

“Watch out for that Alec, seriously. He saw your face, let you know his name... sounds sketchy as fuck, bro.”

A round brow shoots up before he’s instantly huffing, “I’m fine, how could anyone find me? I don’t wander around clubs like you do with you girlfriend. I didn’t piss any of them off, if anything it’s the other way around after that pathetic excuse of a mission.”

“I’m just saying, dude. Vamps don’t talk to us, even less than they talk to civi’s. It must have told you that shit for a reason - thinking you’d be taken care of, what else?”

And it made sense, especially in their minds, with how paranoid and cautious they needed to be within this line of work. Alec sighs, rolling his neck, “I didn’t have that gut feeling, Jace, I’m safe.”

“Even you can miss something, you know. You’re not a machine.”

“Says you.” Birds of a feather, the Lightwood brothers. Both ready to live and die in battle.

“Exactly. If I can admit it so can you.”

“Must be easier when you’re laying that on me and not yourself, hypocrite.”

“I’m not a machine either, happy? If I were I’d be able to stop feeling like a piece of shit, which would be awesome right about now...” That tone of defeat returned to his voice, a trap of guilt that the blonde tumbled back into.

“Whatever, dad would be proud of you too.”

“Stop it,” Jace snaps. “We all know he was prepping you your entire life, Alec. It’s bullshit, the way she’s acting.”

“Are you gonna tell her that?”

Before Jace can respond, Izzy pokes her head out of Clary’s apartment; only her top-half visible, long dark tresses of silky hair flowing down one side of her head with the tipped position she adopted. Red lips pulled up into a wide, shit eating grin - he knew she was about to say something that was going to piss him off. 

It was her specialty.

“Is that Jace? Tell him to come by if he’s done being anointed, pretty please,” she bats those long lashes, begging Alec to follow along with her plans. “Clary wants to go out.”

“What? No-,” Alec tries to protest.

“Go out where?” Jace must have heard their sister, considering she was only a few inches away. “Should I wear leather?”

“You were going to wear leather anyway,” Alec scoffs. “No, no going out, seriously. You know we have to stay in tonight.”

“Pandemonium at nine, okay? That huge dome shaped club off 71st,” Izzy yells over Alec, knowing he was going to avoid giving Jace any details. They knew each other too well. “Come by Clary’s first, she misses you!” And with that, she pops back inside, yanking the door closed behind her.

“Pandemonium? Definitely wearing leather.”

* * *

_  
**day 002 ; 10:23pm**  
_

A shitty side of town. Not in the touristy, wow, there’s trash everywhere and rats are mating in the streets; blood was practically (possibly, probably) being drained behind every building - hell, inside every building. This section of the city was written off for the Society entirely, too many numbers to overpower them and leave them defenseless.

It had taken monumental effort for his siblings to convince him to come into the club with them. 

_But Alec, what if something happens? We need you!_

Manipulative assholes.

Worse than the Red Fang, which has always been a predominately human club, the energy inside Pandemonium was deafening; alarm bells were blaring inside Alec’s head. Every person to nudge and bump him was immediately regarded as a vampire in his mind, and the hunter jumped ten feet back every time.

What if this place got cased by that... Sabbat? What if this was the Sabbat and those other vampires retaliated while they were in here; how would they escape?What if Jace was right and Alec was being followed now?

“Can you relax, I practically see the steam coming out of your ears,” Jace shouted, tossing an arm over his jumpy brother’s shoulder. “Don’t freak out, one night won’t kill you.” And when Alec merely glares in response, the blonde sighs. “Do this for me, okay? Clary sees the way you’re always trying to leave and relates that shit back to me. You’re making me look bad, bro.”

Of course. Always. “Whatever,” the eldest snaps, a bitter look on his face as he turns away from him, instead looking out at the crowd.

Something caught his eye: It was almost as if all the people were being herded in one direction. All dancing and moving in a circle around center stage- the VIP section. All wanting to get in, which wouldn’t have been unusual in such a populated club, but something about the autonomous formation of them made him suspicious.

“Hey,” Alec tries to call for his brother, but one quick assessment and he could see that the three of them had started to wander off for drinks, a splash of red making way to the bar. Despite her size, Clary was always easy to recognize. 

Sighing, he follows after them, quickly able to play catch up. “Hey,” he tries again, gripping his brother by the back of his arm, distracting him from ordering from the bartender so Clary had to jump in for them. “Do you see that? All those people?”

Tipping back so he could see what Alec was talking about, Jace quirks a brow at him in confusion. “And?”

“They’re all standing by the VIP ropes.”

“No shit, I would be too if I knew I could get in, they’re just desperate. You need to get out more,” His brother chastises him, but lack of knowledge on the western club scene aside, it still felt off. Jace seemed to notice that look of determination on his face. “Look, I know we’re smack in the middle of vampire country, but Iz and I know how to take a day off. Who cares, they’re going to drink blood anyway and you know that. We don’t have to be on the hunt twenty-four-seven.” In clear Jace-fashion, the blonde leaves no room for argument and whoops with glee once a shot for all of them is poured and laid out on the bar-top. 

“Alec, I got you one,” Clary says, tapping him warily on the elbow. A peace offering, now that Jace was here she seemed to be much more content with the constant secrets.

Pathetic show of resolve.

Before he can decline, Izzy and Jace are giving him the same look of warning: they wanted him to play nice with Clary, that much was obvious. Sighing, shoulders slugging, the eldest reaches forward and plucks one of the shots off of the bar, and despite not knowing what it was, he downed it in one gulp.

“Hell yeah!” Izzy shrieks with glee, and the others laugh too, happy to see Alec try.

Jokes on them, he just knew they would be easier to deal with if he was at least slightly inebriated.

They all follow suit and before long they want to dance... which is convenient because it’s closer to the VIP section, out on the dance floor, and Alec wants to investigate.

Rings and rings of people, almost in neat lines, we’re enjoying the music; popping, locking, twerking... whatever it was that meant a lot of obnoxious ass-shaking. This was undeniably, not Alecs usual scene. He didn’t even have a “scene,” unless stalking out alleys while he was working counted.

While his siblings were distracted by the beat, Alec approached the very cusp of the perfect wave of people, his skin thrumming with an unknown energy as he continued approaching. It was like a siren call deep within his own body; a song that created a desire to get closer. To feel and breathe in the space with all these people. To swim deep and never come back for air. 

What was he looking for again?

Feet moved, combat boots sliding against the illuminated dance floor robotically almost, ignoring the bright white, purples, and pinks that shone from beneath him - abruptly he combed through all of the people. A desperate need to be as close as he can get. To touch the velvet ropes and bouncers that were in place to keep him at bay.

Wouldn’t they let him in? Let him be with them?

The other people all around him seemed rooted in place, never pushing forward the way Alec was, and he was unreasonably smug about that. They could stay back there but he needed to be close. Needed to touch. Breaking through the last few rows of them, he could clearly see the VIP section. Scantily clad men and women alike were scattered around back there, behind long, maroon curtains that wore the giant Pandemonium logo, sitting on laps or crawling around on the floor below other people’s feet.

The better, or should he say properly, dressed people were sitting comfortably in large, plush leather seats. Bottle service delivering glasses full of dark liquor, he presumes, back and forth consistently. A yearning coming from seemingly nowhere pushed a whine out of the back of Alec’s throat; desperate and wild. 

Scanning the faces of everyone he could catch a glimpse of back there, he was sure he looked like a puppy begging for table scraps, but unfortunately couldn’t focus on it long enough to be embarrassed. “Let me back there,” he begged absently to the bouncer nearest to him, not even looking in the workers direction.

“No groupies,” the big bald guy replied plainly, almost in a trained fashion.

“Please, I need to,” Alec continued to whine, his voice unrecognizable to himself — and abruptly, he squeaked out another desperate cry, vision blurry and unfocused as he makes electric eye contact with someone back there. Finally. 

_Recognition, yes! Please... please..._

The bouncers next reply was ignored in favor of staring, Alec unable to catch the words before something snapped in his head.

Those eyes, how the peered through him like he was nothing but a meal, he was thrown into a burst of déjà vu; a riverbank rushing in his mind and the crinkling of paper leaves, he’s just seen those eyes.

Like the entrapping of logic has just finally reclaimed his brain, Alec blinks harshly, taking in the vampires true features. The nose ring, the rather decorative clothing that both confused and astounded Alec. The glittering of makeup and the sparkling of jewelry. 

Magnus.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> feel free to drop a comment if you enjoyed please :)<3


End file.
